The Masque of the Red Death Decay and the Red Death held dominion over all". Directly influenced by the first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole's "The Castle of Otranto", in "The Masque of the Red Death" Poe adopts many conventions of traditional Gothic fiction, including the castle setting. The multiple single-toned rooms may be representative of the human mind, showing different personality types. The imagery of blood and time throughout also indicates corporeality. The plague may, in fact, represent typical attributes of human life and mortality, which would imply the entire story is an allegory about man's futile attempts to stave off death (a commonly accepted interpretation).
The Murders in the Rue Morgue one male and French, but disagreed on the language spoken by the other. The speech was unclear, and all witnesses claimed not to know the language they believed the second voice to be speaking. When a bank clerk named Adolphe Le Bon is arrested even though no evidence exists pointing to his guilt (other than his delivering the gold coins to the two ladies the day before), Dupin becomes intrigued and remembers a service that Le Bon once performed for him. He decides to offer his assistance to "G–", the prefect of police. Because none of the witnesses can agree