Compare life outside the palace with the life of the people Prospero brought inside in "The Masque of the Red Death."

In "The Mask of the Red Death," the major difference among the guests of Prospero (his name suggests it) and those left outside the palace is wealth and social position. Those who do not possess these traits in Prospero's "dominion" are subjected to the "Red Death," suffering "sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores...and seizures."  Within thirty minutes they are dead.

Prince Prospero, who "was happy and dauntless and sagacious," feels that he can fortify himself and those of his realm against the plague of the "Red Death."  He invites "knights and dames of his court" to his palace for a masked ball and does include "buffoons," ballet dancers, musicians, and servants. His oddly decorated seven rooms--the seven stages of man?--and the masquerade serve to lend an unreality to the occasion of the party. Yet, when the "uninvited guest" arrives in the sixth room, the blue room, there is no defense against him.  Prospero dies instantly in the seventh room, the red room, after accosting this agent of death as do the "throng of revelers."