Prince Prospero's solution to the red death is to run, hide, and ignore. He decides to
take one thousand friends and lock them away in one of his fortified abbeys. This
"castellated abbey" was surrounded by "a strong and lofty wall" with
"iron gates." Once inside, the occupants, including Prospero, seal up the doors and
weld them shut.
Inside, the structure had everything one could dream of, from
food to entertainment. It seems Prospero felt if he locked himself away from the outside world,
the red death could not get to him. From this moment forward, he chooses to pretend he is safe
and that the red death does not exist.
However, this tactic does not work.
One night during a festive ball, the crowd sees a masked figure walking through the colorful
rooms. No one is able to recall where this person came from, and the sight of the mask, which
looks eerily like the corpse of a plague victim, brings terror to the guests. At the end of the
tale, it's revealed that this masked person is, in...
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