The list of characters is short, but also relative to the vision one has of the story. For starters, Prince Prospero and the Red Death are the characters that define this tale, but time is also a major supporter of the plot. Time is embodied in the clock located in the last stanza, and is even personified through the story "from the bronze lungs of the clock came a sound that was clear, loud, deep, and exceedingly musical" (Poe 345). The clock reminds revelers of the rational reality that awaits them all at the end; and in this sense it is a representation of the ego that reigns in the id of the revelers and of Prince Prospero. Yet, still with the constant reminder of looming morality; id continue their lively party. The last person to actually cease the revelry is Prince Prospero, who only stops for the Red Death. Prospero uses the opulence of the masquerade to fuel his Freudian desires such as id and to displace his thanatophobia or fear of death. In this sense, could the masquerade be the dream of a prince's anxiety to protect his kingdom and himself from a threatening plague? The dreamlike descriptions of the gathering and the slightly ambiguous character of the narrator intensify this concept of false reality created by Poe. The constructed dream does not cease until the Red Death makes itself known to the id, denying the inevitability of time. Death