Story can be found on:
The Masque of the Red Death
In Edgar Allan Poe's story, The Masque of the Red Death, a narrator tells the story of how Prince Prospero sealed himself in an abbey with a thousand of his friends in an attempt to escape from the plague called the Red Death. But, in the end, death caught up with him. Who exactly is this narrator? The narrator is Death itself, personifying the Red Death plague that has come to claim its last victims. Death is the only possible "survivor", if we can call him that, of this tragedy.
Who else might the narrator be? There is the possibility that the narrator is an omnipresent character, the super ego of the author. It can also be someone from the outside who has been infected. He or she might have found a way into the abbey and infected everyone; or it can be a dying guest who may have recorded the last moments of the episode, maybe even in blood. The narrator may have discovered these recordings and then added on many elements to flourish the story. Although seemingly realistic, these theories can and will be refuted.
First, we should ask what characteristics the narrator possesses. We know that he or she survived the events and can therefore narrate them. Another possibility is that an other-worldly being is telling the story and thus, it can be already dead. In addition, the narrator was surely a primary witness since he was able to describe every single moment of the night and even comment on the time of each. In turn, the person displayed symptoms characteristic of the Red Death.
The narrator can well be a third person telling the story, the omnipresent all-knowing narrator. It is a very plausible explanation and the narrator may not have anything to do with the story. But, we will not accept this right away. The narrator seems to have a personal reason for re-telling the events. It so shows in the ambiance of the story. Also, he integrates himself in the story as he walks around the abbey.
It is very unlikely that the owner of the Red Masque was a person from the outside because of the precautions that the prince took to seal himself. The "wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within" (p.292). Furthermore, by the time the person or being finished his walkthrough of every single room, he would have been dead because "the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour" (292). It is very unlikely that the person, if he was human, would have had time to go to every single of the colored rooms in the abbey. And even more implausible is his survival.
