What do the colors in The Masque of the Red Death symbolize?

Bell interprets each of the colors of the seven rooms—blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet— as symbolic of "Prospero's physical and mental condition in that decade of his life." The seventh room is the location of death, as it is eerily decorated in black and red—black being a color associated with death and night, and red being a color strongly associated with blood, and, in this story, the Red Death. Meanwhile, in the first six rooms "beat feverishly the heart of life."