An Unpopular Opinion: Covid Restrictions and “The Masque of the Red Death”
By: Marie Oulds
Tags: Plague, Liberty, Danse Macabre, Covid 19, Control

Once all the pieces were pretty much put together and an image emerged, though the puzzle was not yet solved, I decided cautious skepticism was still the attitude to adopt amongst a nearly hysterical public, for the most part sheltered too long from some of the grim realities of life by a modern culture promising a safety that does not exist. The puzzle was that of Corona Virus and the mandatory masks and social distancing rankled me. It was not because attempting to safe guard ourselves from germs isn’t a fantastic idea; rather, what sent my haunches astir was this idea that by shutting down society we could dodge a viral bullet, one that is still not completely understood. Certainly, with a virus that has such gruesome and painful symptoms for some people, logical precautions should be voluntarily adopted. At the same time, with most cases of Covid-19 expressing mild symptoms and the actual mortality rates hovering at less than 3% of the entire U.S. population[1], mainly afflicting those with underlying conditions (whether pre-diagnosed or not), I wondered if the shutdown was/is really necessary and if the shutdown did not have some other function. Although it is logical to take safety precautions during an epidemic, the extent of the restrictions currently in place offer a false sense of security and detract from our liberty; they signify the will to control the uncontrollable as depicted in Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.”

Along this course of thought, being a person predisposed to long contemplations, I began thinking of the Catholic Sedlec Ossuary in the village of Kutná Hora, Czech Republic. I toured the site some years ago and learned that the bones which composed the ossuary chapel all belonged to victims of the 14th century Black Death that decimated so much of the European population. My tour guide emphasized the cultural impact of so much death. It brought those who survived much closer in what felt like a much smaller and much emptier world. The widespread death, easily observable and often right next door if not within one’s own home, also sparked a carpe diem attitude that persisted through the Renaissance.

Figure 1: A Personal Photo Inside the Sedlec Ossuary

Unlike the past, a widespread carpe diem attitude is not something I see manifesting as a cultural force today. As plague racked medieval Italy, Boccaccio, in addition to some weighty tales, lightened things up with humorous stories of trysts and trickery, revealing humanity’s will to life despite the wreckage as well as confirming social decadence as a sign of collapse or at least transformation. What has lingered the longest with me about the Decameron is not the tales themselves but rather that amongst the empty castles and manors, plague even touching those who lived so far above the common people, a small group of youths defy social codes of propriety to quarantine together in the country side, telling stories and sharing laughter within an almost Edenic garden. They seize the day by creating a sense of pleasance. Boccaccio’s garden imagery and the youth’s relaxed interactions are beautiful in the superlative, and the mood is wistful yet gently melancholic as opposed to 2020 in which Beauty, Music, Love, or even Lust fail to shine as forces of influence within the cultural moment of this epidemic. With so much of modern society already so saturated with the Image, obsessed with all exteriorities, and rather excessive in physical expressions of desire, the 2020 Corona Virus epidemic’s Zeitgeist is anything but a page from the Decameron. If anything, the Zeitgeist is one of futile attempts to control the uncontrollable within a culture already characterized by heathenistic tendencies.

Figure 2: A Tale from the Decameron by John William Waterhouse

The vibe of 2020 reminds me more of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death,” and I have to admit I am startled that very few people have noticed. In “The Masque of the Red Death” the plague has afflicted the populace quite heavily, and the noble people have shut themselves up in their lofty castles so that by separation, they might live through the Shadow of Death. However, as even our society recognizes, being in a lockdown is a boring and lonely type of business even for the most obstinate introvert. Thus, Poe describes that six months into “lockdown” a glib Prince Prospero decides that a cos-play rager is exactly what the plague doctor ordered. Counting on the nobility to be germ free, the invitations go out so that the prince’s friends can dance the night away within his eccentrically colorful domicile. At the appointed time, at the appointed place, the party commences. Now, with Poe, to expect a comedy would be a poor assumption indeed, and just so, the tale he weaves waxes to a tragic conclusion with Death in full Danse Macabre attire entering the gala.

Figure 3: “The Masque of the Red Death” by Harry Clarke

This is where the parallel to modern America comes into play. Once the prince realizes that there is a guest who has disturbed the revelry, he “demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him — ‘who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him — that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!’” The prince’s outrage is directed at a target who is demonstrably uncontrollable: Death. While everyone stares in a frozen inexplicable terror, Death proceeds to walk the Prince’s halls, marching onward through the uniquely colored rooms, all hues that arguably represent the stations of life. Finally, the Prince himself is the one to act and pursues Death unto the final black room only to be stabbed with the knife with which he had sought to stop Death, representing the futility in seeking the ultimate form of control: the power to control Death. The theme is compounded when the rest of the guests finally try to apprehend the unwelcome guest, for they discover that he has no substantial material form and thus cannot be contained by human law. As Poe describes, “Then summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and seizing the mummer whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse- like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.” Their hands clasp nothing but air. All of the attempts to control Death lead to a direct encounter with the ineffable. Similarly, in society, the government has taken a hard stance on all forms of interaction in an attempt to slow the spread of the virus. At the end of the day, the cases of illness have gone up while small businesses and places of spiritual solace find themselves at a loss; at the same time, the virus floats upon the air, transmitted by breath, and though the masks and the distancing may slow the progress of that which we dread, they have not the power to quell it or contain it in any ultimate sense.

It is not that Americans are disregarding health precautions and rubbing elbows at drunken bashes: with strict health measures in place, it is clear that we can help prevent needless death, still yet, the parallel between our society and the “The Masque of the Red Death” is the folly of thinking that we can control what is uncontrollable. We cannot escape Death as it is very difficult if not impossible to close ourselves off from all avenues of viral transmittance. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the gas that we buy: everything is touched by another, in this our shared world. We can quarantine all we want or even break quarantine if skeptical about its utility, but in many ways, if we think that all our precautions will truly keep us safe, then we are only fooling ourselves. A truly deadly disease may be stopped with the correct medications or with an efficacious vaccine. Without those items, precautionary measures may reduce the risk of illness, but those same measures cannot keep us truly safe. If anything, they may just give us a false sense of security or a misguided sense of control. Our masks may be, for the most part, emotional security items rather than much safeguard against the germs that so plague us. I am not arguing that precaution is foolish, though I do think that the government has over stepped its bounds with the restrictions it is setting over the people. Instead, what I am saying is this: we need a more balanced and logical approach to the virus so that we do not destroy liberty in an attempt to annihilate risk.

Though the risks facing us are worth consideration and precaution, hysteria isn’t the answer when Death stares us in the eye. It is hubris to think we can control every detail of life and believe that we have outsmarted the risk of Death. If it is true that Death is staring us in the eye, let us hope that the stare is far removed enough that we know we have life in us yet. The pathos driven charges against those who fight to preserve liberty, including claims of heartlessness, irresponsibility, and stupidity, that we are killers of our grandparents, are claims that do not consider our inherent mortality as natural creatures. It assumes that control can over power natural forces and while I concede that human attempts at control can alleviate malady, the point is that it is not inviolable. As a society, we can’t and shouldn’t lock ourselves up and throw away the key, demonizing people who forget their masks or just reject the state control, and think that we have evaded that which we fear. If we are silent and follow along this trajectory of excessive control in exchange for safety, we are really just depriving future generations of liberty for a false sense of security.

Even with the strictest guest list and the most detailed rules, Death will make it to the party anyway. Let us be free then and at ease when he thus arrives, for being a hysterical, controlling, and submissive people shall do nothing but weaken the culture for those who survive.

[1] This number was calculated using the total number of Covid-19 deaths reported by the Centers of Disease Control as of 12/24/2020 in relation to the total number of the 2020 U.S. population.