This extract was taken from The Baccae. It is when a central characters mother and sister have just ripped him apart, but because such things could not be staged at the time The Baccae was written, Euripedes wrote a messenger's speech to describe the event. As I would be unable to show a person being ripped apart by cannibals, it is important that I look at all the different ways of implying what's happening.
The Masque of the Red Death
The Masque of the Red Death is a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe.
The story takes place at the abbey of the "happy and dauntless and sagacious" Prince Prospero. Prospero and one thousand other nobles have taken refuge in this walled abbey to escape the Red Death, a terrible plague that has swept over the land. The symptoms of the Red Death are gruesome: the victim is overcome by convulsive agony and sweats blood instead of water. The plague is said to kill within half an hour. Prospero and his court are presented as indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large, intending to await the ending of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge.
One night, Prospero holds a masquerade ball to entertain his guests in seven colored rooms of the abbey. Six of the rooms are each decorated and illuminated in a specific color: blue, purple, green, orange, white, and violet. The last room is decorated in black and is illuminated by a blood-red light; because of this chilling pair of colors, few guests are brave enough to venture into the seventh room. The room is also the location of a large ebony clock that ominously clangs at each hour. Each hour the clock clangs loudly, and everyone stops talking and the orchestra stops playing. At the chiming of midnight, Prospero notices one figure in a blood-spattered, dark robe resembling a funeral shroud, with a skull-like mask depicting a victim of the Red Death, which all at the ball have been desperate to escape. Gravely insulted, Prospero demands to know the identity of the mysterious guest so that they can hang him, and when none obey, pursues him with a drawn dagger through the seven rooms until the mysterious figure is cornered in the seventh room, the black room where the windows are tinted scarlet. When the figure turns to face him, the Prince falls dead at a glance. The enraged and terrified revelers surge into the black room and remove the mask, only to find both it and the costume empty. To the horror of all, the figure reveals itself as the personification of the Red Death itself, and all the guests suddenly contract and succumb to the disease. The final line of the story sums up: "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.
This story is relavent to my film because of the idea of concealment and mystery that's signified by the masks. Although my character isn't escaping the Red Death, he is hoping to avoid being eaten by the cannibals, and the idea of black and red as a theme could reflect the sinister and bloody climax of my film.
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