Terrible and beautiful, savage and exquisite-that's why Poe's works keep me reading.
Edgar allan poe's famous work The Fall of Usher Mansion begins with a long description of the environment. From the perspective of a lonely traveler, Usher Mansion (originally described as a "dark mansion") in a swamp with dead trees and misty shadows is suddenly thrown into readers' eyes, followed by a description and description of the strange physical state of Usher, the hero's childhood friend.
The Mask of Red Death succinctly conveys the horrible and gripping beauty of Poe's brushwork-poetic words, dangerous atmosphere condensed by magical reality, interweaving light and shade, moral conflict, and layers of readers' five senses.
The reader came to a country ravaged by the "Red Death". Just like the ultimate Ebola virus that we are familiar with, it only takes a long time for people to bleed to death-"blood is its embodiment and its seal-blood is red and horrible". The powerful Prince Prospero (translated as "Lord Rong" in one version, which is very interesting), although half of the population under his administration has died, he is still "fearless and wise" and invites thousands of guests to his isolated temple for fun. Edgar allan poe didn't write how people's lives were threatened by red death, but he used a lot of pen and ink to describe how Prince Prospero and his followers lived in a splendid castle far from danger. After living in seclusion for five or six months, Wang Ye seems to have forgotten the rampant red death, and even held an eight-tone masquerade, which was unprecedented.
The main stage of the red death mask is this masked ball. There are seven rooms in the venue from east to west: the first six rooms are filled with windows and decorations of the same color according to the colors of blue, purple, green, orange, white and purple, while the seventh room in the west wing is covered with strange black velvet curtains, and the windows are unusually covered with blood-red glass. A room without lights is illuminated by a triangular furnace outside the window. The room was beautifully reflected through the fire of the glass. Only the seventh room was bathed in "Lotus", and few guests dared to stop.
In addition to the gorgeous and unique decoration of Prince Prospero and all kinds of grotesque people attending the banquet, there are countless musicians accompanying the men, women and children who take turns dancing. The strange thing is the ebony giant clock in room seven. Every time it strikes the time, there will be a loud and transparent but bloodless phrase. Every hour, it will force this strange or beautiful wine pool to stop suddenly. Everyone is waiting for the bell to recede and casually return to this absurd and crazy party.
However, this wonderful event came from a lonely, boring and terrible person-he wore a shroud and looked like a corpse wearing a mask. The most terrible thing is that his body is covered with blood spots symbolizing red death. People like to believe rumors and doubts. The appearance of this horrible image has gradually aroused everyone's disgust and retreat. This provocative behavior humiliated the monarch. He stood in the blue east room and shouted, ordering his men to catch him, while the prince who was ready to respond was left out in the cold at this time. But this bold freak seems to deliberately report step by step, ignoring all the reactions of the people next to him and leaving from east to west defiantly after the scuffle. Seeing that this arrogant uninvited guest was about to leave, the unbearable monarch held his dagger high and angrily crossed six rooms to punish him. Surrounded by black and blood-red curtains, the prince, one step away, fell down in front of this ghostly man with a bright dagger. The mob swarmed like a rude awakening, and the people who saved the disgusting shroud and mask actually found nothing in this figure-an amazing banquet, surrounded by blood-red demons, and at this moment, people fell to the ground and died suddenly. The last glory of this country is gone forever, and the unexpected red death makes darkness and death rule everything-
This specious and wonderful story, even if it is creepy, echoes in the chest outside this horror is its grotesque and crazy beauty and sense of substitution.
The "death" in the article sneaked into the fortress people used to escape from reality in the dark:
This reminds people of a chapter in Revelation, in which seven angels poured seven bowls of God's wrath on the ground, and the sixth angel fell on the Euphrates River, drying up the river and paving the way for the king of the East. Next is a sentence:
In the carnival of "Red Death", neither the prince nor the guests stayed awake. They may wear fine clothes, but they may not wear the emperor's new clothes, because they are passively escaping from the world and deceiving themselves. The god of death, who is like a thief, pours his anger, or the anger of people who suffer but are ignored, into the magnificent residence of the monarch.
The number "seven" runs through the whole revelation. Whether walking among seven golden lampstands with seven stars in his right hand or the disaster caused by seven bowls of wrath, the death of red color is more or less related to this. We don't know if the seven rooms of different colors from east to west of the masked ball have any symbolic significance. The seventh room, often used to symbolize the bloody color at the westernmost end of yellow, is also the final destination of red death.
Friends who have read DC comics may know the role of Cyrus Gold. He is a walking corpse with superhuman strength. He was inspired by an English nursery rhyme "Solomon Glenday":
Translated as follows:
This strange nursery rhyme comes from the famous Mother Goose. Besides Solomon Glenday, there are also Who Killed the Robin, Ten Little Black Boys (Agatha's no one lives) and Three Blind Mice (Agatha's Mousetrap). The story of "Death" in "Death in the Red" and the ending in the seventh room is just in line with Cyrus Gold. Of course, my remarks are not necessarily over-interpreted. However, the plot and stage of the Red Death Disease are covered with confusing or heavy or mysterious cultural factors, which really adds a layer of horror and fantasy to the work.
One of the most frightening things in "Red Death" is that edgar allan poe never revealed who the uninvited guests caused the panic. Finally, I just said:
What took the lives of one fallen person after another? Is this real red death or ... fear?
Or, from the beginning to the end, in fact, there is no such a freak sneaking in. Everyone, including the whistleblower, gradually lost their minds in the superficial security and inner constant fear, surrounded by strange bells and scary decorations, and finally at the peak of absurdity, * * * projected their fears on the "death" where rumors breed, thus ushered in their own spirit one by one.
Krishnamurti discussed the essence of fear-fear is the self itself. The feeling called "fear" is projected by our own memories, thoughts, large and small collections of consciousness and everything known in the past. Our fear of "ghosts" is essentially the fear of "death" and "injury" in all the rumors, words and images in our memory, which is our own experience or instinctive understanding. We are afraid of "darkness", in fact, we are afraid of all kinds of dangers that we subconsciously think may be hidden in the darkness, and these dangers also come from our direct or indirect experience.
Isn't the fear of "red death" the same? People who have fun to the point of madness are really afraid of not the weird and scary bells, nor the bloody glass windows, or perhaps the weirdos who wear different clothes, but the diseases that they try their best to escape and the Qian Qian people who are abandoned by themselves. The image that appears in the venue may not need to wear a shroud or look like a zombie. It only needs to be independent in this confusing banquet, solemn in turmoil, decadent in splendor, increasingly bizarre in rumors, and unmoved in front of irrational dignitaries. The person in it may project his most feared red death on himself, for unknown reasons.
Throughout his life, people are building a cage called fear with more and more memories. When we escape from any reality, we are more or less building a flashy palace for ourselves. When we hold a tall building in our hiding place and entertain guests, there may be fears of not knowing the truth and reality at night and there will be nowhere to escape.
Off-topic-how to distinguish purple from violet (purple vs violet)