Edgar Allen Poe, "The Masque of the Red Death," and Perversity as an Aesthetic Experience

Today is Edgar Allen Poe’s birthday, and so I thought I’d write an homage to one of his best—my favorite—stories: “The Masque of the Red Death.”

This story always stirs me. It’s truly horrifying. And its not just the plot that disturbs—the story of the pestilence, the supernatural elements, the blood, the ghostly personification of the Red Death that drives alls the revelers into the black room. It’s also the tone of the narrator.

If I had to pick one adjective to describe the narrative tone, it would be, perverse.

Generally speaking, a “perverse” something is considered a deviation from the "normal" or what is expected. But I think there’s a little more to it when we describe something as perverse in an aesthetic context. Let me explain.

In art, not only is something or someone “perverse” if it deviates from the norm of things, that perverse thing is a source of pleasure. Pleasure, satisfaction, glee—these are just as important elements to the aesthetic of “perversity” as any deviation from the norm.

That pleasure married with strangeness is the tone of the narrator in Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Masque of the Red Death.” He’s relating the story of a group of selfish aristocrats who have cut themselves off from the world to escape a horrible pestilence; furthermore, he’s relating the story of how they are inevitably brought down by that pestilence.

And in relating this story he strikes an almost a giddy, pleasured, tone, as if their vain attempts to keep the dangers of the world at bay are laughable. As an artistic experience, I find this quite moving. It effects my body and just the mind: it gives me the shivers. 

In this story we have a 3rd person omniscient narrator who is not “dis-interested” in his characters; he’s quite “interested” in his characters. Furthermore, he seems amused by his characters, in the same way a little kid who is plucking the legs off a spider is amused by arachnids.

Let me be clear: I’m not elevating this sort of perversity for its own sake; Poe’s victory, I think, is to conjure an artistic experience out of this gruesome material.

There’s an image in this story, right after the duke falls dead, that always gets me. All night long the revelers have been avoiding the black room with the red light. The duke dies. And here is their reaction: “Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment […].” This "allegorically resonates" for me: these folks have been avoiding death and ignoring it for so long; and now that they have glimpsed true cosmic horror, they run to their deaths (the black room), embrace it.

When the narrator states at the end of the story, “And the flames of the tripod expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all,” I pecieve a quality of exulation here, a kind of grim rejoicing or celebration of death’s victory that is completely in earnest and completely perverse.

Happy birthday Mr. Poe.