Maskerade

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Death dressing up for Salzella makes a nice finishing touch to the whole ‘masquerade’ theme of the book. It resonates with the Phantom of the Opera musical where the Phantom gatecrashes a party “dressed all in crimson, with a death’s head visible inside the hood of his robe”, and both scenes in turn evoke Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death.

When someone on the net wondered if this scene had been influenced by Monty Python (who also do a Death-at-a-party sketch), Terry replied:

“No. I’m fairly honest about this stuff. I didn’t even see the film until long after the book was done. Once again, I’d say it’s an easy parallel — what with the Masque of the Red Death and stuff like that, the joke is just lying there waiting for anyone to pick it up.”

The Masque of the Red Death is a well-known story by Edgar Allan Poe, in which the nobility, in a decadent and senseless attempt to escape from the plague that’s ravishing the land, lock themselves up a castle and hold a big party. At which a costumed personification of Death, of course, eventually turns up and claims everyone anyway.