The Red Death is a fictional character first featured in Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Masque of the Red Death (also The Mask of the Red Death). A grotesque figure garbed in a blood stained robe similar to a death shroud and with a face resembling that of a corpse, it is the embodiment of the red death itself ( a fictional plague in the story) which has come to bring death to the nobles who vainly sought to escape its reach by hiding in an abbey. Various interpretations have been advanced by scholars as to how best to interpret the story with some insisting that it is a work of allegory while others contend that it something entirely different.
In The Phantom of the Opera, Erik dresses as the Red Death to the Masquerade Ball.