What does the masked figure represent in "The Masque of the Red Death"?

In one sense, the masked
figure who crashes Prince Prospero's party is representative of the disease -- called the Red
Death -- that ravages the kingdom.  The disease is referred to as the Red Death because it is
characterized by the hideous quantities of blood that seem to pour out of a person when they
have contracted it.  The narrator says of the disease, "Blood was its Avatar and its seal
-- the redness and the horror of blood" because its victims would literally bleed from all
their pores before they died.  The masked figure comes, having "assume[d] the type of the
Red Death."  His clothes are "dabbled in blood -- and his broad brow, with all the
features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror."  He is the disease,
personified.

However, the masked figure is more than just the disease.  He
can be interpreted as a symbol of death, in general, too.  His mask looks like the face of
"a stiffened corpse," and he is first seen by Prince Prospero as he stalks through the
seventh room of black and red.  This is the only room to be characterized by two colors, and so
they both must be significant.  Just as red is associated here, with the fatal disease, so black
is often symbolic of death in general.  Likewise, clocks are often symbolic of mortality and
death, and so the ebony clock in this room provides another clue that anything associated with
the room is likewise connected to death.  It is not the Red Death, the disease, that holds
"illimitable dominion over all" but rather death in general.  No human, no matter
their status, can escape death, though the prince clearly thought that he could.  Thus, the
masked figure represents both the bloody disease as well as death, generally
speaking.