The most frightening time of the year is approaching—Halloween. Terror may be instilled throughout the world through chilling stories that mix reality with fiction, but just enough for us to fear these make-believe scenarios. One particular author, Edgar Allan Poe, especially emulates a chilling ambience that perfectly suits this eerie holiday through his stories. Poe was an American author and poet who lived from 1809 to 1849, who is particularly remembered for his uncanny stories. If you’re still feeling the Halloween spirit and want to dive into something a little spooky and out of the ordinary, here are three summaries of some of his best works.
Note: Plot spoilers!
- The Masque of the Red Death:
Prince Prospero’s kingdom is tormented by the Red Death, a lethal plague that kills with insufferable pain and bleeding, marking victims with a scarlet stain upon their face.
In an attempt to rid himself of the troubles the Red Death is bringing upon his kingdom, Prince Prospero seals himself and thousands of his friends inside one of his abbeys, where they indulge in lavish partying, completely heedless of the suffering that happens in the kingdom around them. They take numerous precautions to ensure that they are safe from contagion.
Prince Prospero throws a magnificent masquerade ball throughout seven rooms, each with a color. The last room houses a great ebony clock, which rings uncannily, surrounded by ruddy windows. When the clock strikes midnight, an intruding masked figure appears, whose mask resembles that of a corpse and has the scarlet mark of the Red Death upon his face.
Prince Prospero is enraged to have his festivities ended with the reminder of the Red Death and chases the masked figure throughout the seven colorful rooms. When the Prince eventually encounters the figure in the final black room, he lets out a cry and suddenly drops dead.
When the revelers come upon the figure and remove the mask, they reveal that the corpse-like mask and cloak had no physical person beneath, coming to the chilling realization that the figure was the Red Death itself before they all drop dead, dominated by the Red Death that they thought they had escaped.
- The Black Cat:
A man who had once been tender and kindly to his wife and animals has exponentially grown to be a violent, alcoholic man. His ruthlessness is inflicted upon his black cat, Pluto. The man gouges out one of Pluto’s eyes and hangs the cat that he once cherished, consumed by his ill temper. A fire engulfs his house in flames that same night, and the man sees the terrifying hanging cat on one of the remaining walls.
A new cat, very similar to Pluto except for the white spot resembling a gallows on its coat, drives the man insane. The man’s hatred for the cat stems from the cat’s resemblance to Pluto.
When the cat follows the man and his wife to the cellar and gets in his way, the man swings his axe in an attempt to kill the cat, but the wife intervenes. In return for her intervention, the man swings the axe at the wife instead, ultimately killing her and sealing her in the wall of his cellar.
Without his two burdens, the cat and his wife, the man feels at peace. The man believes that the cat had enticed him to murder.
When the police conduct a rigorous search of the man’s house, the man is proud of his concealment of his wife in the plastered wall, and even raps upon it. However, a shrilling scream suddenly emits from the wall, which the police instantly demolish, revealing the wife’s dead body and the black cat, mouth ajar, perched atop her head.
- The Cask of Amontillado:
A man named Montresor has been insulted numerous times by a man named Fortunato. Irritated and enraged, Montresor plots to get revenge without being caught. Fortunato does not assume any ill intentions from Montresor, which allowed Montresor to plot carefully.
During the season of the Carnival, Montresor finds a drunk Fortunato, and tells him that he has bought a special wine, Amontillado. Montresor feigns his lack of knowledge of the wine’s quality so that Fortunato will ask to see it. Fortunato, being prideful in his knowledge of wine, demands to see the Amontillado, which is kept in Montresor’s catacombs.
Montresor offered him wine to protect him from the dampness of the catacombs. Despite the cold that Fortunato has, he keeps drinking wine and continues down the catacombs. They reach the crypt, where Montresor tells Fortunato that the Amontillado lay inside.
Montresor then chains the drunk, stunned Fortunato to the walls and begins to enclose Fortunato with bricks. Although Fortunato’s drunkenness is beginning to wear off, Fortunato believed that Montresor is joking, until Montresor seals the last brick, enclosing Fortunato inside until his death. The story ends with Montresor admitting that it’s been fifty years since he chained Fortunato, and closes with the Latin sentence, In pace requiescat! (Rest in peace!)
This concludes the summaries of the three Edgar Allan Poe stories. If interested, full, original versions of these stories are available on the Poe Museum website.
