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Prince Prospero in The Masque of the Red Death
By Edgar Allan Poe
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Prince Prospero
Prince Prospero is a terrible ruler. Does leaving your peasants to die of the plague while you go and lock yourself up safely in a pleasure palace count as being a good prince in your book? Fortunately, Prince Prospero's got more to his character than that, quite a lot more, actually. He may be a party-animal and maybe even a madman, but he's also a twisted artistic genius. And possibly one huge allusion to Shakespeare.
Prince Prospero the Fool
On the surface, Prospero looks like shallow guy. All he seems to care about is pleasure, which is what it means to be a "hedonist." He doesn't want to spend his time doing anything but drinking, dancing, and laughing, and generally having fun. That makes him an awful ruler, because when the going gets tough, Prospero gets going. It makes him seem selfish too: he just doesn't care about the suffering of his people. He doesn't even want to think about it, because that would be too much of a downer. His basic philosophy is summed-up here:
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. (2)
Prospero does not want to face death. He deliberately flees it with his followers and tries not to think about it at all, so he can revel in the good times. But his attempt to escape death is doomed to failure: everybody has to die eventually. Prospero's impossible attempt to ignore death and focus only on life's pleasures makes him a classic "fool" figure. Sadly, he learns his lesson the hard way at the end.
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