The Masque of the Red Death Establishes Mood

“The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous.  Blood was its Avatar and its seal-the redness and the horror of blood.  There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution" (Poe 41).

 

At the beginning of the story, we learn that the country has been plagued with a repulsive disease which holds no discrimination toward its victims.  This terrible Death invokes a mood of fear and anxiety of an inescapable fate which cannot be avoided despite who you are, what you have, or what you do to try and protect yourself.  Everyone will die, and it is the inevitable factors of when it or how it will happen that causes those to try evade the thought.  Every person in this country will suffer death through blood and pain and this reality creates fear and perhaps avoidance of the reality that awaits them.  While they might try, all their hope and efforts are thwarted because no-one will escape….