Tuesday 8 December 2015

How many of the colors in the prince's castle in Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death were bright and cheery?

At the risk of complicating the assignment -- which colors in Prospero's suite of rooms are "cheery" -- there is less consensus regarding the effects of individual colors on mood than might be assumed. While certain colors, such as red and pink, are generally associated with joy or happiness, others, such as purple and yellow, are often associated with both positive and negative feelings [See on this point: Color Psychology: The Emotional Effects of Colors]. This particular source, for example, lists as moods associated with yellow happiness, cheery, anger, frustration, and hunger, among others. With this in mind, an examination of the colors in the short story in question can be as follows:

The seven rooms, "an imperial suite," that formed the focal point of Prince Prospero's castle abbey in Edgar Allan Poe's The Masque of the Red Death are each decorated in a different color. Those colors are blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. Of these, orange is the color most often associated with "cheer." Most of the others, blue, purple, green, violet, and white, are not associated with "cheer," but are often related to calmness, tranquility, and other adjectives suggesting a relatively even and restful demeanor. These colors, then, are not necessarily associated with "cheer," which suggests a more intense feeling of happiness. Obviously, the seventh room, which is black, and which has window  panes that, alone among the seven rooms, diverge from the color of the draperies that dominate the decor, is intended to evoke more negative feelings, including those of the presence of death. Poe's narrator describes these window panes and the uniqueness relative to the other rooms, as follows:



" . . .as in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood color."



Depending upon the intellect of the individual teacher or professor, then, the only room with a "cheery" color could be the one painted in orange, or the teacher/professor in question could consider blue, green and purple (with violet obviously being very close to this latter color) as also being "cheery." Blue, green, purple, and violet, however, are, as noted, associated less with happiness per se and more with calmness, and that is an important distinction.

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