...Like a Thief in the Night

The Masque of Red Death, by the legendary Edgar Allen Poe, is a frightening and chilling short story about the duke of an unnamed province, Prince Prospero. A terrible and extremely deadly plague known as the Red Death has ravaged his dominion, though he pays it no heed, being protected from the disease from within his abbey, which was as fortified as a castle. The prince summoned a thousand of the upper-class citizens who were not dead, dying, or infected into the abbey, as both company and to ensure he didn't lose his entire dominion. From then on, the abbey was in a perpetual masquerade, or a costume party in essence. For about six months the prince and his thousand guests were completely safe from the Red Death, believing that they had cheated certain death.

One night, during the festivities, a man, one that had gone completely unnoticed until now, captured all the guests' attention at this point. This man was not masked as the thousand guests were, which crossed into the areas of the wanton and the bizarre. This man was masked as one plagued with the Red Death, covered in blood and made to look like a corpse. When the prince sees this man and his grotesque and horrible disguise, he orders him arrested and unmasked, so that "we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise." To the prince's anger, no one so much as approaches him, as all were struck with an uncontrollable and unexplainable fear. The prince, in his fury, grabbed a dagger and charged him. When the prince came within four feet of the man, the figure suddenly turned and confronted him, and the prince "fell prostrate in death" to the floor. Immediately, one by one the guests died, each falling with the affliction of the Red Death. "And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night."

Like a thief in the night. I Thessalonians 5:2-3. That one little phrase, composed of six words, just gave the entire story its meaning. The verse warns all of the coming of the day of God, when God shall judge each and every soul, and how it will come, you guessed it, like a thief in the night, when we least expect it. The day of God, or Judgement Day, can also mean death. Our Judgement Day. No one can escape death. Of course, one could have worked that theme without the biblical reference, though the reference to Thessalonians gives the theme, the message of the story so much more weight, more legitimacy. Its no wonder so many writers use the tactic.