This study will provide an analysis of the Gothic features of the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. The study will argue that Poe's works do indeed demonstrate a number of the elements of what is known as the Gothic school in literature, which is marked by "mystery . . . heavily tinged with horror derived from a gloomy background of medieval architecture and with terror of the supernatural" (Columbia 529). Writing of the story "Ligeia," one critic writes that
the exterior of the abbey and its situation are described with every adjective in the Gothic repertoire: wildest, least frequented, gloomy and dreary grandeur, savage aspect, melancholy and time-honored memories, utter abandonment, remote and unsocial region, verdant decay (Bloom 96).
In such an ominous setting, Gothic literature creates characters who are obsessed with death, fear, violence, evil, the supernatural, and other dark aspects of existence, the imagination, and the human condition. Gothic characters in Poe often believe themselves to be special in some way compared to other people. In "The Masque of the Red Death," Poe features a protagonist who believes he is beyond the physical and/or psychological laws and conditions which control the lives of others. Prince Prospero believes that he is beyond the power of the plague. He believes that ordinary people will be killed by the plague, while he and his friends will survive. This belief is based in part on the security provided by his Gothic dwelling, which he believes will physically keep out the plague. Prospero has "summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends . . . and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys" (Poe "Masque" 874). Prospero 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. Prospero sees himself as the master of the Gothic world he has created:
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