Two Stories by Edgar Allan Poe

This study will provide a comparative analysis of two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe---"The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." As the study will show, despite some important differences, the fundamental message of the author in both stories is the same. Both stories feature protagonists who believe they are somehow exempt from the physical and/or psychological laws and conditions which control the lives of others. The protagonist of "Red Death," Prince Prospero, believes that he is beyond the power of the plague. He believes that ordinary people will be killed by the plague, but that he and his friends are immune. It seems that this immunity is based on more than the fact that he has tried to physically wall out the disease. Before he takes extraordinary measures to keep the plague out, he "summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys" (Poe 874). The Prince assumes that his wealthy friends, like himself, have not been infected with the plague. In any case, it is clear that he believes himself and his friends to be superior to the poor people, because he invited none of them into his barricaded castle to survive the disease.

Just as the Prince thinks he can keep death out, so does the protagonist of "Tell-Tale Heart" think he can keep death quiet, or at least his conscience quiet. Both protagonists think they ar

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tagonists as well. The Prince Prospero goes to great extremes to create the seventh room which was so frightening that no person even entered the room. The protagonist in "Tell-Tale Heart" seems to have, sadistically, frightened the old man to death. One difference in the two stories is the socioeconomic status of the two protagonists. The Prince Prospero is obviously wealthy and powerful, while the protagonist in "Tell-Tale Heart" is a relatively poor man. Another difference is that the Prince is surrounded by a thousand friends, while the other man is without friends. Actually, he may be said to have had one friend, or a potential friend---the old man. Of course, he killed his only possible friend. These differences are minor when compared to the basic similarity: the stories are about the dark side of life---disease, the plague, death, murder, guilt---and the protagonists are two men who believe that they can overcome these forces and emerge victorious. Each man believes himself to be far more powerful than he actually is, and each pays mightily for the errors of his ways. Death overwhelms the Prince, while the conscience of the other protagonist eats away at him until he confesses to his crime. The protagonist of "Tell-T

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