Edgar Allan Poe, the founder of detective stories, the master of manipulating the issue of death, and whose tales are filled with all kinds of symbols, allegories that conveys the author¡s concepts about life. He his equipped with thoughtful, cautious analysis ability, and sufficient imagination. Poe was born in 1809. In his personal life, he had had many encounters with death, starting with the death of his biological mother, adoptive mother, and ending with the death of his beloved wife, Virginia. Although a serious of losses made Poe become a neurotic person; however, that was also the motive power of Poe¡s creation, and the reason why Poe often discussed the issue of death in his tales. In ¡§ Anthology of American Literature: Colonial Through Romantic,¡ McMichael points out ¡§ Poe has often seemed an embodiment of the satanic characters of his own fiction¡(qtd. in Rose 727). This perfectly explains that Poe¡s works reveal the environmental influences on his character. In the following study will therefore examine the issue of death and symbols in Poe¡s tales in ¡§ The Masque of the Red Death,¡ ¡§ The Black Cat,¡ and ¡§ The Fall of the House of Usher,¡ which related to his personal experiences and concepts about life.
             First of all, ¡§ The Masque of the Red Death¡ is a tale mainly about Prospero, a prince, who wants to escape form a deadly disease that gave people red skin, invites his friends staying in his magnificent castle and locks the doors so no one could bring the disease in. In case of being bored, the prince held a masquerade party for his friends one night. He decorated each of his seven rooms in different colors form blue to black and in the position from east to west. However, at that night, an unknown masked figure appeared wearing all red. After the masked figure¡s appearance, people at the party began to fall ill of the deadly disease. Finally, the figure mo...