Poe's story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading.

Prospero and 1,000 "hale and light-hearted" other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague with gruesome symptoms that has swept over the land.

They intend to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut to ensure no one enters or leaves.

The last room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a scarlet light, "a deep blood color" cast from its stained glass windows.

As nightfall approaches, none of the guests enter the final room as it takes on a more eerie display and the additional chimes of the clock make them uneasy.

The terrified revelers become enraged and surge into the black room and forcibly remove the mask and robe, only to find to their horror that there is nothing underneath.

The plague may, in fact, represent typical attributes of human life and mortality,[2] which would imply the entire story is an allegory about man's futile attempts to stave off death (a commonly accepted interpretation).

[3]: 137  However, there is much dispute over how to interpret "The Masque of the Red Death"; some suggest it is not allegorical, especially due to Poe's admission of a distaste for didacticism in literature.

Its maze-like design and tall and narrow windows become almost burlesque in the final black room, so oppressive that "there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all".

Poe describes it as causing "sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores" leading to death within half an hour.

[10] Others have suggested the pandemic is actually bubonic plague, emphasized by the climax of the story featuring the Red Death in the black room.

[3]: 139–140 Poe first published the story in the May 1842 edition of Graham's Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine as "The Mask of the Red Death", with the tagline "A Fantasy".