Pandemic as a Core Theme of the Text
Abstract
“The Masque of the Red Death” can be called a theatrical story. The narrative is replaced by “showing”, which is indicated by the use of the word “mask” in the title of the story, the selection of seven different colored halls and costume masquerade as decoration for the central episode of the text. The disease with the name Red Death with its symptoms and devastating power is very similar to cholera or the plague. There are attempts to read the theatrical metaphors of this story as grotesque elements, or a projection of the sick body, or as a metaphor for social and political convulsions. However, there are other aspects of this story – the biographical and the real historical basis of its writing.