Poes The Masque (Mask) of the Red Death as Fantastic...

The Mask of the Red Death as Fantastic Genre American author Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) wrote many poems and short stories back in the 1800s. Poe is said by some to have virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller. These works include The Raven, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Fall of Usher House, and The Mask of the Red Death (April 30, 1842). In the fantasy short story Poe uses certain magical elements that are not accepted by the reader as being real. Because these magical elements are not accepted by the reader as being real this story is an example of the Fantastic genre and not a part of Magical Realism, because in Magical Realism they unreal is accepted as real by both the†¦show more content†¦But in this chamber the only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet- a deep blood color. (483) Also in The Mask of the Red Death, Poe uses the technique of de-familiarization or radically emphasizing a common element of reality (Simpkins 150) to tell his story. Poe achieves this effect by de-familiarizing the Red Deaths ability to kill its victims at the masquerade. This is evident when: The revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose figure stood erect and motionless within the shadows of the ebony clock, gasped unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so a violet a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form. And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. (487) He goes on later to say that: one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. (487) These passages also show that the characters and the narrator accepted this supernatural event as being real because the narrator makes the statement: Now was acknowledge the presence of the Red Death.