What was a main theme in The Masque of the Red Death?

One major theme of the
text is that no one can escape death. Prince Prospero believes that he, with all of his wealth
and resources, can elude death and live happily while his kingdom is decimated by disease. He
calls a "thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his
court, and with these retires to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys."
Surrounded by its "strong and lofty wall" and its "gates of iron," this
abbey sounds like a veritable fortress, indeed. All of the gates are welded shut so that
nothing, the courtiers and the prince believe, can...