The Conquering Worm and the End of the World Edgar Allen Poe is one of the fathers of terror and mystery. His twisted and macabre stories and poems are rich in detail and often end on a sad twist. “The Conqueror Worm” is an example of his masterful rhymes and tells how a play about life becomes a reality for humanity. The setting is a theater but it is not just a place for theatrical performances. Poe describes it this way to deceive the reader, but in reality the theater is the setting of humanity. We play our lives at this stage for everyone to see. Lines three through six describe the audience and how they are there to see "a spectacle of hopes and fears." If people looked beyond the point of reading the line just to understand the words, they would see that the work actually represents the lives of everyone in society. I say this because everyone has their own hopes, such as getting a good job, being successful, having a family, and finally dying happy. Along with their hopes, everyone also has their own personal fears. The characters in the poem are also very significant keys to show the hidden meaning. The first stanza describes the crowd that has gathered to witness the enactment of our human lives. Lines three and four state "a crowd of angels, winged and sleeping in veils, and drowned in tears." Poe states that a group of angels will watch the play put on for them, even though they are already drowning in tears from previous plays. The orchestra that plays for them is another set of characters that have meaning. They represent the background of everyone's life "playing the music of the spheres". A third set of characters showing hidden meaning are the "Mimes, in the form of God on high." They indicate the people who inhabit the earth. Poe describes them as "Mere puppets, coming and going at the command of vast formless things." The vast formless things are the ideas we have. Ideas like the things we think we need to do for ourselves to survive and succeed. They also constitute the drama of the work. A final prominent figure in this dramatic performance is the conquering worm. Poe describes it as “a blood-red thing.