11-12-20

I have sunk to a new low — using Facebook posts to influence my lesson plans. Or maybe, the fact that I get inspiration from social media is a testament to the sort of friends I keep. Intelligent literary minds think alike. 

Last month, Trump announced his Supreme Court nomination in the Rose Garden. Days later, Trump and many of his guests tested positive for Covid. Shortly after the news broke, friends of mine posted about Edgar Allen Poe and how he written the script more than a hundred years ago in his short story “The Masque of the Red Death.”

Back in my former life, when I had a job teaching college writing, I would often read “A Tell Tale Heart” with my students around Halloween. They enjoyed dissecting Poe’s writing. It was something different. Something fun. My son knew that I had this propensity to celebrate Poe with my students, and so he asked me — now that he is my student — if I would consider bestowing the same treat upon him. Since we had already read “A Tell Tale Heart” together last year, he suggested that perhaps we could read one of his many other stories. I quickly said yes. Why not? He’s my only student, and life is always more peaceful when he isn’t throwing a tantrum over doing his work. If the reading keeps him interested, it’s a bonus for me. 

Therefore, when I saw my friends posting about “The Masque of the Red Death” I knew I had to read it with my son. Along with printing a copy of the short story, I printed a news article that discussed the Covid outbreak in the Rose Garden. My son follows politics better than I ever did at his age. While I recognized a comparison of the two might be a bit ambitious for a ten year old, I also thought we could have fun doing it. Besides, when you have only one student you can tackle far more difficult assignments because you can move at whatever pace works best for that one student. Nothing is too difficult when you don’t have administrators or parents making demands. 

The story was not easy to comprehend. Not for a kid. Hell, even I had to slow down my reading to absorb it, analyze it, and take it all in. So we read the story together, taking turns reading the paragraphs aloud. We stopped frequently to discuss the story so that I could be sure my son understood it. There was a great deal of symbolism and my son enjoyed excavating the deeper layers of the story. It took us two days to sift our way through the text and when we finished, my son declared it was one of his favorite stories.

However, he complained about having to write about it. Apparently, writing takes all the pleasure out of reading. Comparing fact to fiction was the challenge I expected it to be. But I had him start by drawing a chart noting the similarities between “The Masque of the Red Death” and the Rose Garden. From there he started drafting. 

Thank you Facebook family for such a wonderful lesson idea.

Below, you can read G3’s final draft of his comparison essay.

The Red Death Comparison 

Everyone thinks fiction is fake, but is it? Fiction is a mirror into reality. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” written by Edgar Allen Poe, a virus is taking over a country. It reminds me of today when Covid is killing thousands of people daily.  

Both epidemics have killed many and have almost taken over the world. Covid is a respiratory illness and it destroys your organs. Even though the Red Death is not a respiratory illness, it kills you within a half hour of getting infected. Blood comes out of every pore. Covid does not kill everyone it infects. The Red Death does. 

Prospero and Trump are both rich and rule a country. They also think their money can protect them from a disease. Neither of these two men care about their people. Prospero hides from the Red Death. Trump spreads Covid. Trump holds rallies and does not wear a mask. 

In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Prospero thinks his money can protect him. He and his friends, whom he invited to live with him, are having a ball. In the Rose Garden, Trump and his cronies celebrated Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination for a seat in the Supreme Court. Both parties are during epidemics. At the ball, in the story Prospero dies along with every one else because Red Death personally shows up to kill everyone. At the Rose Garden, when Trump announced the new Supreme Court justice, no one wore a mask and many people got sick from Covid. 

At the end of “The Masque of the Red Death,” everyone is dead. Prospero was king no more and Red Death took over his kingdom. After of the Rose Garden, Americans kept dying and many of Trump’s minions got infected because Trump did nothing about the virus. Then Trump’s term was no more because Biden won the election.