Plague and Cultural Panic: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’

Abstract Poe’s ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ turns on the paradox of a privileged elite succumbing to a plague that is ravaging society at large, and from which they believe themselves completely protected. The horror of the story consists not in the devastation of external society – that is taken for granted – but in the abject failure of the elite’s supposedly impregnable defences, their faith in which is exposed by the ‘Red Death’ as utterly delusory. ‘Put not your trust in Princes’ (Ps. 146.3) takes on an entirely new meaning.