i have a question about edgar allan poe. im so confused?

Question

What symbolic evidence can you find in Poe's use of the following: (You may need to visit Boheme Magazine Online for some tips in responding to these.)

a. the number seven

b. the use of colors, especially the black and scarlet in the seventh room

c. the movement from east to west in the sequence of the rooms and throughout the story

Answer 1

The seven rooms represent the rising and setting of the sun and also reference Shakespeare's 'the seven stages of man'. They could also refer to the Seven Deadly Sins.
The rooms run from east to west, and each room could represent the 7 stages of man's life. The spectre passes through each chamber, and finally kills in the Westernmost, the blackest 7th chamber.
The colors in the story start and end (in order) Blue, Purple, Green, Orange, White, Violet, Black. As seen 7 colors for the seven rooms which start at east and end at the west. Another point is brought here sun rises in the east (life begins) it sets in the west (life ends) the colors show the same as it goes from blue, whose meaning is more akin to that of the beginning life, to white, which represents the middle part of life at its climax, and black, representing the end of life: death itself.

Here's a good site - see link below, please.

A sample:

"The balance of this story takes place in seven apartments of the imperial suite and Poe goes to great effort to detail and describe them. Unlike most palaces where the seven rooms may have been constructed linearly, one at the end of the former, so that by opening all the doors one could view the seventh chamber from the first, Prince Prospero had chosen to have them built so that… “.. vision embraced but little more than one at a time.” This resulted in “a novel effect” at each turn of “every twenty or thirty yards.” The rooms were arranged east to west and each room was uniquely colored. The first apartment was dressed blue, the second in purple, the third was green, the fourth orange, fifth with white, the sixth lavishly covered in violet and the final chamber shrouded in black tapestries and carpets. Each had two “tall and narrow” windows with stained glass that matched the prevailing color of the room with the exception of the seventh apartment. Here the window panes were tinted scarlet, “a deep blood color.” Poe eerily characterizes this final chamber and the effect of light streaming through the windows as “…ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.” Each window looked out into a corridor where “a heavy tripod bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room.” There was no source of light within any of the seven chambers.

It has been suggested that these seven apartments are an allegorical representation of the seven stages of life. Perhaps this is the case, but I would suggest that the arrangement of the rooms from east to west together with the successive colors and the ebony clock that stood upon the western most wall was more descriptive of the cyclic passing of the day from before twilight to its final termination at the midnight hour. Therefore, the life-cycle is represented by the passing of a single day. It must be understood here that each successive day that passes cannot be reclaimed and that the passing of each day is inevitable, unalterable, unstoppable… time will not be denied… there is no escaping the passage of time nor the ultimate conclusion or death."