Dauntlessness Tested

            When half your people are dead from a deranged disease that makes you bleed through every one of your pores, what would you do? Take a thousand of your closest friends from the knights and dames of your court and keep them from the Red Death, or help your people by finding a cure? If you picked the first you are just as selfish and as dense as Prince Prospero. As a prince you are to be as loyal to your people as they are to you, even during times of tragic and unthinkable events leading to the downfall of your country. When you have a prince of dauntlessness, you would think all will be well and everyone will saved by the prince. “The Masque of the Red Death”, by Edgar Allen Poe, shows how untrustworthy and dauntless one prince can be by using concealed symbolism leading to his own tragic ending.

            Prince Prospero’s guests need some entertainment to heighten their spirits while in the castle protected from the widening of the Red Death. Prince Prospero had known exactly what to do: throw a masquerade party. Everything was going fine at the party when the great Grandfather Clock struck for the next hour; the music and dancing stopped immediately. The clock symbolizes the hours counting down to the end of their lives because of self foolery by omitting the hard working town’s people now enduring the Red Death. In some way, the clock paralyzed them until the dings stopped; they knew something dreadful was going to happen to them soon.

           

Though the guests know something horrible is going to happen soon, it’s sooner than they expected. Having designed his castle, there were many rooms, one of which happened to be the Prince’s quarters. It contained seven rooms; the first five colors of blue, purple, then green, orange, and white all symbolize cheerfulness and purity. The other two rooms are deep violet and the last black with red draperies which symbolizes something of tragedy. These rooms help predict what is to happen next with the chase of the masked man, because when he is chasing him, he goes through his rooms from the happiest to creepiest of rooms within sprints. Telling the reader that something terrible is going to occur with the masked man and halfhearted Prince Prospero, once ending in the bloody and shadowy room.  

            Since the black room symbolizes tragedy, the guests are just about to figure out what it means after they realize Prince Prospero is not having fun with them at the party. They hunt for the prince throughout the castle and come to find him lying in a pool of blood within the black room of his quarters with the masked man. On instinct, for the death of their beloved Prince, they attack the masked man and pull off his mask to reveal that nothing is beneath it. It is supposed to show that everything is not what it seems and your life choices depend on that, and so the guests must pay for suffering and painstaking work of the people for the kingdom. 

            Tragic endings are caused by the everyday choices we make, no matter the excuse. The symbolism shows why being selfish and foolish can affect you in all areas of your life. The choices you make, in the end, represent who you are. The choices you make determine where you are headed for. The choices Prince Prospero made by having guests at his castle die for their choices, even when they don’t know whether they were awful or foolish, you must pay for it one way or another. This quote by William Shakespeare sums up how death can deceive people, “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.”

How free were free blacks in the North?

            In 1863, Abraham Lincoln supported the idea to abolish slavery in the Confederate United States during the Civil War. As the war went on more and more slaves were released, but what no one realized was how many people in the north treated blacks the same as they were in the south: animals trying to live. Political, economic, and social freedoms were greatly limited to the blacks of the United States, leaving the blacks with no white person’s freedom as Abraham Lincoln would have wanted. So, how free were free blacks in the north?

            The first state to abolish slavery was in Vermont in 1777 and the last was in 7 states on the southern side in 1865. It took almost a century to realize that letting the slaves go was a priority. One freedom that was limited to the freed black slaves in the north was the many political freedoms. They paid taxes and could vote but did not have the right to be a part of the government, except for any women in the U.S. Which meant no black could run for President or be in the Supreme Court, which every white person could do. It wasn’t fair that they could pay the government taxes and vote for a white person but couldn’t be in the government.

            Though the political freedoms were limited, so were the economic freedoms for the blacks. Is living in your own house called freedom? I wouldn’t think so, but back in the 1800’s, after slavery was abolished, many blacks were isolated to their race. Jobs were limited because the whites did not want to associate with the blacks. Everything was separated, even bathrooms. This meant that owning their own property was limited; it was part of their rights, but blacks still couldn’t be within 100 feet of a white person without being shunned upon. Which means that blacks couldn’t have any sort of a job at hospitals; they couldn’t tend to the white people at the hospital because of their skin color.     

            Supposing that the races were separate most of the time, what happened when love got in the way? “How Free were the Free Blacks in the North” it says that the blacks could not marry the white peoples’ daughters or attend the same church as them. The black churches was where they could not be judged, but listened to. Forming their own band of togetherness was the only way they could get through the day feeling like themselves, though treated like trash. The church was a safe haven for fugitive slaves and many others, where they could marry and be of their faith without being put down by others.

            Abraham Lincoln stood in his place to make sure every person in the U.S. was treated evenly and honorably. Many people denied the fact that we’re all humans and none of us are slaves no matter what the race. Though Lincoln could not carry out his word, many brave African Americans stood for what they believed in and would fight no matter what it would take. African Americans were treated unfairly though they were free to vote or own land. No blacks were free in North or the South just because of their skin color. This saying by Martin Luther King expresses how much he would do to be free and have others be free in every way possible, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.”