Death can be both fascinating and frightening depending on the person and situation. At first glance, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and George Clayton Johnson's "Nothing in the Dark", seem to be very different but they have many similarities despite the time frame in which both were written in.
The setting of these two stories are very different yet very, alike although written hundreds of years apart. In "The Masque of the Red Death", Prince Prospero, has one thousand of his closest friends welded shut in one of his abbeys in hopes of escaping the "red death". Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. This created a prison for them, although quite luxurious. Also, in George Clayton's story the character creates her own prison. Wanda Dunn has herself locked in an apartment all alone for a long while. Going outside to leave money for the little boy she paid to get her groceries only after she made sure that he was gone. She has atleast four locks on her door that you would have to get through before you came inside of her home. Prospero feared the "red death" but Wanda Dunn feared "Mr. Death." …show more content…
Dunn and Prospero are both very cowardly. When they created these prisons for themselves it was to stay away from what they feared most, death. Though death came in different forms in both stories. In Poe's death came in the form of a corpse at a masquerade and in Clayton's, death came as a very kind police officer who was wounded at Wanda's front door. You could say she was very vulnedrable to let Mr. Death into her home because she was an elderly woman alone. When they finally did face their death, they realized it wasnt as bad as thought to