The Masque of Punishment

The Masque of Punishment

The dictionary definition for punishment is penalization for wrong doing. Through the sense of justice in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and Shirley Jackson's "The Summer People" have, the protagonists are punished for their negative character traits. In "The Masque of the Red Death" Prince Prospero has a series of character flaws that he is punished for including both Selfishness and Narcissism. In "The Summer People" some of the Alissons's most prevalent flaws include their defiance, their prejudice, and their anti-social tendencies.

In "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe, Prince Prospero is depicted as a fundamentally flawed character. To begin with, Prospero is quite the narcissist. Even though his people are out in the streets dying "...the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious" (84). The prince is completely self-absorbed. Another prevailing flaw of the prince is that he is selfish. When half of the population Prince Prospero reined over died out due to the plague 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" (84). Here Prospero is abandoning his people in their time of need. When they need him most he secludes himself to tend to his own needs and desires. Rather than doing what he can for the diseased and for their families, he decides to hide himself from them in luxury and to party. This behavior is evidently selfish. The nature of how Prince Prospero is punished for these flaws has direct correlation to the flaws themselves.

Prince Prospero's death is his ultimate punishment for his character flaws, but the way his death occurs is no mere coincidence. Prince Prospero is a narcissist who is obsessed with himself, which is fitting because when he dies he is completely alone. Prospero also commits a selfish act by turning his back on his people and the plague. The ironic correspondence that this holds with his death is that the prince is killed literally at the hand of the plague itself. Edgar Allan Poe isn't the only author who likes to create notably flawed characters.

In "The Summer People" by Shirley Jackson the protagonists are portrayed in a negative manner. The protagonists, better known as the Allisons, struggle with obedience. This couple is defiant. Misses Allison is told time after time in the story that "Nobody stays past labor day" (38). By telling the Allisons that out-of-towners seldom stay during the summer months, the summer people are subtly warning the Allisons of danger and consequences for staying. This warning is repeated a numerous amount of times throughout the story by a plethora of different characters. However,