Death Does Not Discriminate

(Author: Ana-Sofia Munoz)

Class is an element of our lives that affects us regardless of whether we are fully aware of it. For some individuals, they are greatly impacted by the marginalization that results from socioeconomic class generalizations and discrimination and are forced to grapple with the negative effects every day; for others, they greatly benefit from the hierarchies that are perpetuated by our current class system.

Death

However, there is one inescapable process that claims all living things at one time or another: death. Death is known as the great equalizer, and it does not consider the circumstances of those it takes—including socioeconomic class. Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of the Red Death paints a picture that eerily mirrors the circumstances we live in today, as the world and its leaders navigate the coronavirus pandemic.

Poe’s tale of the horrific “Red Death” infiltrating a negligent king’s masquerade ball depicts the inevitability of death through the eyes of those who have done everything in their power to escape it.

Present-Day Pandemic

Through the lens of our present-day events, it may appear that death is, in fact, discriminatory. The coronavirus pandemic has disproportionately affected a multitude of minority groups that lack the resources to take preventative measures against the virus, devastating their communities through the loss of life. This has been seen not just in our current pandemic, but time and time again, during the various pandemics that have occurred throughout history.

Lack of Leadership

But ultimately, this is not a consequence of any disease or virus itself, but a lack of government leadership and support for communities that do not have the power to fend for themselves. Such leaders distance themselves from their subjects, perceiving themselves to be of greater worth and importance; with resources at their disposal, they can often create a physical separation representative of their distinction as well, which Prince Prospero does in Masque.

“When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys… A strong and lofty wall girdled it in… The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself.”

Prospero, much like current government leaders, have left the “external world” behind, feeling that they can defy the very nature of disease. They distance themselves from the public sphere and hide in isolation with their provisions, a luxury that common people do not have.

Despite this, as much as the so-called elite take measures to protect themselves from disease, they are ultimately not invincible.

On some level, the members of Prospero’s ball are aware of this fact: “… anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff frozen as they stand.”

Red Death

Now and again, in the form of the clock’s chimes, they are forced to remember that death and pestilence plague the outside world but continue to resume their activities despite these brief interruptions. That is, until the Red Death is actually present among them.

“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 revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall… And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion overall.”

Ultimately, the way that Prince Prospero’s party members succumb to the Red Death demonstrate the similarities between them and the “external world” they have separated themselves from. We are all susceptible to disease, no matter what resources we may have to protect ourselves against it.