Yet, in the middle of creating this exciting fantastical world, Poe’s third-person narrative voice hesitates to inform the reader that even though “there was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, and something of the terrible” surrounding the construction of this artificial world, there was also “not a little of that which might have excited disgust” (487–88). The last part of this commentary is also an emphasis on haughtiness of individuals who have lost sight of reality in alcohol and surrealistic pleasures.
Poe illustrated the attractions of such an environment. He demonstrated that such self-indulgences came at a heavy price, that what often appears to be real—whether it be the security of Prospero’s castle, or the changed world created by over consumption of alcohol—is in reality a dangerous illusion that often results in death. Thus, “The Masque of the Red Death” has two moral lessons: that the sin leads to death, especially when that sin takes its shape in arrogance; and that self-indulgence is associated with lost reality and, eventually, means death.
