11/3 & 11/4 The Masque of the Red Death

On Monday, we began to read Masque of the Red Death

Here is a link to the story:  http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/POE/masque.html


Students then answered the higher order thinking questions to go along with it.

“The Masque of the Red Death” Annotation Guide

1. What is the main characteristic of the Red Death?

2. How quickly does it kill its victims?

3. What is the significance of the name “Prospero”?

4. What is the outlook of Prospero and his courtiers regarding the Red Death?

5. On the back of this page, draw an aerial-view picture of the suites in which Prospero and his courtiers are partying.

6. How does the final chamber differ from all the rest?  What is the significance of this difference?

7. What is the significance of the narrator’s observation that Prospero’s “conceptions glowed with barbaric luster”? (p. 344)

8. What is the effect on the reader of the metaphor of the masquerade as a dream? (p. 344-345)

9. What happens at the stroke of midnight?

10. Why does Prospero react negatively to the figure of the Red Death?