The Castle represents man’s efforts to prevent death. It also brings forth memories of the Black Death which depopulated much of Europe during the Middle Ages. Although there is no specific disease with the exact symptoms described in the story, critics believe the disease’s description has elements of tuberculosis, a disease which killed many of those close to Poe. The Red Death symbolizes the inevitability of death. You can find the full text of the short story here.
In order to understand the story allegorically, one needs a firm understanding of The Masque of the Red Death symbolism. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” should be studied at many levels: (1) the literal level - the literal level is a study of the events that actually take place in the story (2) an allegorical level - an allegory is a story in which the objects, characters, and events are symbolic of something grander in scale.
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