Edgar Allan Poe is famous for his Gothic-style writing, the vast number of sinister elements that make up a perfect spine-tingling effect. Poe authored many poems and short stories, each of which is a masterpiece in itself, having an engaging storyline and impressing the audience with various stylistic devices. The present paper will focus on analyzing the short story “The Masque of Red Death” and the style that the author employed while composing it. The paper argues that the story is a shining example of Gothic writing due to the perfectly made word choice and creating a single effect throughout the narration. Poe’s writing style in the story selected for close reading is somewhat sinister and rich in stylistic devices. Every paragraph of the narration clarifies the author’s intention to arouse feelings of apprehension and fear in his readers. The succession of these paragraphs makes the whole idea of the story finished and indicates the storyline’s threatening character. Probably the best explanation of these feelings is offered by Poe himself in such a stylistic device as anticlimax employed when describing the reaction of Prince Prospero’s guests to the masked figure: “there arose… a buzz, or murmur, expressive of… terror, horror, and of disgust” (Poe 665). Poe’s way of writing may also be considered as mysterious. This feature is reflected in the description of the “masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before” (Poe 664-665). The author provides a detailed portrayal of the figure, and later it appears to have been only the object of people’s imagination. When explaining how the narrator relates the story, it is impossible not to mention the abundant use of inversion, the instances of which create a peculiar effect, and emphasize the actions rather than actors. Such a focus draws the readers’ attention to the events and keeps them in suspense about what is about to happen next. Although the “deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys” seems to promise Prince Prospero’s friends the shield from the “Red Death,” it becomes obvious from the context that something tragic is going to change these people’s lives soon (Poe 662). The inverted word order is particularly powerful in describing the castle’s formidability and the impossibility of the “Red Death” to enter it. The castle had “buffoons, … improvisatori, … ballet-dancers, … musicians, … Beauty, … wine,” all of which “and security were within” (Poe 262). Immediately after this, Poe writes, “Without was the “Red Death” (262). This structure captures the attention and pushes to the conclusion that there is some faulty hope and some intangible danger because it sounds too self-assured. Apart from the storyline, another aspect makes “The Masque of Red Death” so impressive ─ the unique tone and numerous stylistic devices employed by the author. The major effect, as has been mentioned, is produced by inversion. However, there are many other methods of making the story captivating. For instance, the use of alliteration and assonance gives the narration some peculiar sense of rhythm. The cases of repetition, metaphor, simile, synecdoche, personification, allusion, climax,