Select the correct answer. What is the tone of the following excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Masque of the Red Death"? There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of th
Answers
The tone of the above excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Masque of the Red Death" is macabre and suspenseful.
The story “The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe is literally and allegorically about death. Prince Prospero wanted to hide from death but is left not rescued from it. He arranged a party where he invited people from his kingdom. He ordered to decorate the halls with single colors each. The last hall was colored black which symbolizes death and the windows were painted red. There was an ebony clock which strikes everyone’s attention at the passing of every hour. Though people were busy in the celebrating the party with music and orchestra but at every hour when the clock rings which caught everyone’s attention. The tone in which Poe describes the rooms, the clock, the ringing of the clock, the activities of the people and the entry of death in the party gives an insight about the play that death is inevitable. Death is the central theme of the play. The Poe wants to focus on the issue that no one can be rescued from death by applying any means.
The tone of the given passage is mournful, suspense and macabre.
It is mournful because the author is talking about the death and cry and pain caused from the loss of lives.
The passage has suspense because the end leaves the question to what happens next, it has the tone of macabre because the author here explains the horror of the death.