Carl Jung was the psychoanalyst who first discussed the concept of the “shadow self.” The shadow self represents the dark sides of our personalities, where we keep all the thoughts, impulses, and desires that society or our own moral code find unacceptable or even evil. Our shadow self can also house realities we deny because they are too painful or frightening to face.
In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Edgar Allan Poe introduces us to Prince Prospero. In his country, a plague has broken out and is decimating the population. It is a fast-moving plague, characterized by sudden sharp pains, followed by “profuse bleeding at the pores.” Once struck, the victim is dead within thirty minutes.
Prospero decides to try to cheat Death by gathering a thousand of his friends and closing them in his castle with him. He ignores the needs of his country and focuses on his own self-preservation. For six months, the prince and his chosen fellow survivors live well in the castle. Prospero has taken care to stock up with ample provisions. He continues to deny death despite the fact it surrounds the castle on all sides.
This refusal to face the reality of death and his fear of it is part of Prospero’s shadow self. His narcissism is also part of his shadow self, fueled by his desire to survive the plague.
The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime, it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”
The way he chooses to decorate the rooms for the costume ball almost seems like Prospero’s shadow self has been given more reign over his conscious self than is wise:
It was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque… here were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.
At midnight, Death appears, but Prospero does not recognize him. He fights back an instinctive shudder and threatens to hang this masquerader in the morning. He chases Death into the black room, his dagger drawn, certain that he can get the better of this uninvited visitor. His will to live causes him to take yet another foolish action—to confront death with the idea that he could defeat it.
Both Prospero and his shadow self denied the reality of the plague. Wrapping himself in hedonistic pleasures with his thousand friends, he indulged his desires no matter how wanton or bizarre. His focus was to live, and live on his own terms. Nevertheless, it was no use. As the narrator points out in the last line of the story, ”Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”
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