Exposition: Poe uses the beginning of the story to offer important background information; Prospero's kingdom is under attack from the Red Death, and Prospero locks his friends and himself into his castle to escape the plague.
Inciting Incident: Prospero's decision to hold a masquerade ball starts the main conflict between he and the Red Death in motion.
Rising Action: The description of the rooms, the chiming of the clocks, and details of the party increase the tone of anxiety and fear in the story. The conflict intensifies when the mummer (mummy) dressed as the Red Death appears and angers Prospero. Prospero's decision to chase him when the other knights in the castle back away from the unexpected guest in fear leads to the climax.
Climax: Prospero has reached the point of no return when he falls dead while attempting to kill the mummy.
Falling Action: The knights must react to Prospero's death in the climax of of the story and they pull the sheet off the mummy only to find nothing there. They all fall dead.
Resolution: With all the knights and Prince Prospero dead, the conflict is resolved as the Red Death takes complete control of the kingdom.
SYMBOLS:
The ebony clock: The ebony clock symbolizes that prospero and all the party goers are just one hour closer to death
Prospero- he is a prosperous and humanities lack of control over death
East and west- from sunrise to sunset and from birth to death
Abbey- is a monastery is a place where monks pray for peoples salvation. The salvation is turned perverted here
Room colors- the room colors represent the seven deadly sins,blue representing the least of them and black representing the worst.
Blue- birth
Purple- childhood
Green- teens
orange- maturity
white- adulthood
violet- very old age, second childhood
black- death
IRONY:
Prospero: Prospero's name means prosperouys, but he ends up not being prosperous by trying to avoid death but dying anyways.
The narrator's description of Prospero as "happy and dauntless and sagacious" : Prospero is happy and dauntless because he thinks he can evade death and overcome it.
CHARACTERIZATION:
Prospero- he is selfish and greedy and takes more than what he needs. He is punished for this by having death come to his party and kill him and his partyers