Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American writer and a contemporary of Edgar Allan Poe. Hawthorne's short story collection Twice-Told Tales is considered to share similar elements of Gothic horror with the short stories of Poe. Read at least one of Hawthorne's stories from this collection for comparison with "The Masque of the Red Death." Discuss the similarities and differences.

Discuss Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" in terms of how it portrays a societal or group response to illness and plague. What is the attitude of the privileged guests of Prospero's castle toward those outside the castle who are more vulnerable to and afflicted by the Red Death? In what ways can this story function as a parable, or story with a moral, for understanding contemporary societal responses to the disease of AIDS and those infected with HIV?

Poe's "The Masque of...