Every time the clock chimed the people were frightened. They would stop what they were doing and stand in fear. “Musicians… were strained to pause… waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions… echoes had fully ceased,” (Poe 86). When the chiming stopped, people would go back to what they were doing with no trace of fear. “A light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled,” (Poe 86). In the story, it says, “the sounding of midnight upon a clock… a masked figure… terror, of horror, and of disgust…There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made,” (Poe 88). I think that when they saw the masked figure, at the stroke of midnight, that it was the moment in the story that the people realized it was their last hour. “The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave… mask… so
Every time the clock chimed the people were frightened. They would stop what they were doing and stand in fear. “Musicians… were strained to pause… waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions… echoes had fully ceased,” (Poe 86). When the chiming stopped, people would go back to what they were doing with no trace of fear. “A light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled,” (Poe 86). In the story, it says, “the sounding of midnight upon a clock… a masked figure… terror, of horror, and of disgust…There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made,” (Poe 88). I think that when they saw the masked figure, at the stroke of midnight, that it was the moment in the story that the people realized it was their last hour. “The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave… mask… so