Allegory and Parable “The Masque of the Red Death” is considered an allegorical tale; this means that the literal elements of the story are meant to be understood as symbolic of some greater meaning. Britannica Online explains that an allegory “uses symbolic fictional figures and actions to convey truths or generalizations about human conduct or…
Tag: Short Stories
The Masque of the Red Death – Themes
Death While this story is literally about a pestilence called the Red Death, it can be read at an allegorical level as a tale about man’s fear of his own mortality. In the story, Prince Prospero and his “thousand friends” seal themselves into an abbey of his castle in an attempt to “defy contagion” and…
The Masque of the Red Death – Characters
The Masked Figure The “masked figure” that appears at Prince Prospero’s costume ball is the most illusive “character” in the story. Upon the stroke of midnight, the guests first notice this “masked figure,” who is “tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave,” and looks like the corpse…
The Masque of the Red Death – Summary
Poe’s story “The Masque of the Red Death” begins with a description of a plague, the ”Red Death.” It is the most deadly plague ever, as “no pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.” The symptoms of the plague include “sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores.” The…
The Man to Send Rain Clouds – Essay
Over the last twenty years, the general development of scholarship about women’ s lives and art parallels an unprecedented flowering of creative writing by American Indian women. But in view of these parallel developments, American Indian women have shown little interest in the feminist movement, and conversely mainstream feminist scholarship has paid strikingly little attention…
The Man to Send Rain Clouds – Analysis
Her work widely anthologized, Leslie Marmon Silko is considered the preeminent Native American woman novelist, a legend in her achievements in the field of Native American literature. Her writings are included in the syllabus of various American literature courses in high schools and colleges. Raised on the Indian reservation in Laguna, New Mexico, she incorporates…
The Man to Send Rain Clouds – Setting
Silko wrote the story “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” in 1967 for a creative writing class, basing it upon a real-life incident in Laguna, New Mexico. In the late 1960s there was an interest in indigenous cultures in America. Many Indians moved off the reservations and into mainstream American culture, becoming more visible as…
The Man to Send Rain Clouds – Literary Devices
Point of View The story is told through an objective, third-person narrative, and unfolds in a rigidly objective tone. There is no hint of the narrator’s personal voice as each character is presented. With the exception of the graveyard scene that concludes the story, the narrator does not explain the character’s thoughts, but presents only…
The Man to Send Rain Clouds – Themes
Creativity In her short story “The Man to Send Rain Clouds,” Silko perceives creativity as a source of strength for Native Americans, a theme that recurs in her later works. In particular, Leon’s strength lies in his ability to creatively combine Indian rituals with Catholic rituals. He does not strictly follow the Indian ways, but…
The Man to Send Rain Clouds – Characters
Grandfather See Teofilo Ken Ken is the brother-in-law of Leon and a minor character in the story. Like old Teofilo and Leon, he also believes in following Indian ways, and he helps his brother-in-law any way he can. Leon Leon is Teofilo’s grandson. He manages to integrate American Indian ways and Christian ways; he is…