The administration’s approach to the crisis has gone from laissez-faire to willful tunnel vision, and has advanced to the point now where it’s actively arguing that it’s worth risking the lives of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, to keep the economy afloat-not that the people making those suggestions plan to be anywhere near the front lines. In the economy of crisis, industries often supersede individuals-though recessions (like the one we’re inevitably facing) have more vulnerable casualties who aren’t as able to bounce back. This isolated framing of an emergency, the close-quarters perspective that values dramatic and ornate circumstances while turning away from the larger societal ramifications, is as much of a horror as the Red Death itself.

After opening the story with a grotesque description of its symptoms (“bleeding at the pores,” “scarlet stains,” and various other nightmarish Romero-style affects), he strikes us with a gauche contrast: “But Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious.” More important than the image of the foolish prince hidden away in his castle is the society he represents, one in which the privileged are insulated from the biological reality of the sickness outside the abbey’s walls, or at least believe themselves to be. Perhaps that’s true, but here Poe’s definition of horror extends beyond the gruesome presentation of the disease itself. It’s easy to read “Red Death,” which was published in 1842, as a morality tale, though some critics resist it, insisting that Poe was simply interested in telling a horror story. As a historic pandemic further highlights the economic and social disparities in societies around the world, Poe’s story underlines how the selfish, limited purview of entitled members of a society more concerned about comfort and capital during a disaster only causes more destruction. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” a gruesomely masked guest inexplicably crashes the apocalyptic soiree and is eventually revealed to be the plague itself personified, killing the prince and his fellow revelers alike. Netflix’s Cleopatra Has Sparked Furious Controversy. It Is Long Past Time to Retire the Oldest, Dumbest Debate in Literary History After Succession’s Chilling Election-Night Episode, the Show Can Never Be the Same

The red masque of death