Read the excerpt from "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe
Based on the details in the excerpt, what is the primary
purpose of this passage?
to amuse
to inform
o to thrill
O to warn
But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in
them beat feverishly the heart of life And the revel went
whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the
sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music
ceased, as I have told, and the evolutions of the waltzers
were quieted, and there was an uneasy cessation of all
things as before But now there were twelve strokes to be
sounded by the bell of the clock, and thus it happened,
perhaps, that more of thought crept with more of time,
into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who
reveled. And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before
the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into
silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had
found leisure to become aware of the presence of a
masked figure which had arrested the attention of no
single individual before And the rumor of this new