Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe are often thought of as having different themes in their writings, but in reality, they have extremely similar themes. In Hawthorne's "The Experiment of Dr. Heidegger" and Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," one theme is incredibly important. Death is inevitable, and when we try to escape death, we always find it hiding in another corner. Death can be avoided by hiding behind a barrier or attempting to defeat it, but one will always fail and have a limited time before it overtakes them. Hiding behind a barrier, whether physical or emotional, has always been the first line of defense in escaping death. In "The Dr. Heidegger Experiment," the Widow Wycherly, Colonel Killigrew, Mr. Medbourne, and Mr. Gascoigne hide from their old age and impending death by drinking water from the Fountain of Youth: "Age , with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and illnesses, was remembered only as the disturbance of a dream from which they had joyfully awakened” (Hawthorne 9). The four comrades all took refuge in a corner of their minds, and saw themselves in their own distorted reality. They burrow ever deeper into this alternative dimension of youth. "'We are younger, but we are still too old! Quick, give us more!' " (Hawthorne 7). When faced with another defense against imminent death, they do everything they can to include it in their arsenal. In “The Masque of the Red Death,” Prince Prospero shares the same feeling of invincibility. He locks himself and his comrades in his crenellated abbey, in the hope that the Red Death will not reach them: “When his domains were half depopulated, he summoned before him a thousand healthy and light friends among the knights and ladies from his court, a...... middle of paper...... since Prospero withdrew, he condemned all those who were shut up with him: "And one by one he let down the revelers in the bloody halls of their feast, and died each in the desperate posture of his fall” (Poe 7). and Prince Prospero had different initial results after his first failed attempt to avoid death, but they share a common final result Let us examine the evidence presented on the need to avoid death by hiding behind barriers. or attempting to overcome death, one can clearly see that escaping death is impossible and will always lead to failure. No matter how hard you try, you cannot escape death. Before you try to escape death, you need to think about how gifted you are at receiving life..