THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH / LA MÁSCARA DE LA MUERTE ROJA hyperlinked parallel text ENGLISH / SPANISH (FIERABRÁS parallel text nº 6)

Prince Prospero seals himself and a thousand of his friends into the abbey of a castle in order to protect them from a deadly pestilence—The Red Death—that is ravaging the country. But when the group indulge in a lavish costume ball in order to distract themselves from the suffering and death outside their walls, the Red Death, disguised as a costumed guest, enters and claims the lives of everyone present. The story is narrated in a manner which gives it the quality of a myth, allegory or fairy tale, exploring themes of man's fear of death, sin, madness, and the end of the world.
This tale is a prime example of Poe's Gothic horror fiction. Poe evokes a dark and eerie mood in a story that focuses on images of blood and death, while the personification of the Red Death lends an element of the supernatural. "The Masque of the Red Death" embodies Poe's mastery of the short story