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Fall of the house of usher critical analysis
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One of the most well-known writers of our time, “Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, on January 19, 1809, [being] the second of three children” (Bloom 149). After Poe’s mother passed and his father subsequently left, “the children [were then moved] to a different household of a Richmond merchant [by the name of] John Allan” (Bloom 149). Even though Poe was “not legally adopted, he is renamed as Edgar Allan” (Bloom 149). Through his lifetime of creative writing, Poe’s death remains a controversial discussion, nevertheless, Poe was and still is recognized for his great literary works ranging from symbolic gothic literature to poems. Poe’s “gothic story that has remained one of [his] most popular [creations], also known as, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” includes symbolisms that are not treasured memories for the characters, but rather …show more content…
The house was a representation of Roderick, as it was dark and its physical features were declining, just as his mental and physical health was; while he perished, the house collapsed to the ground, which represents the deceased Usher family generation. His phobia began to build as the death of his sister neared, making her an allegory of his mental torture and the reason for his foreshadowing of his own collapse. Madeline also, in a way, represents Poe’s wife and cousin, Virginia, since incest was possible at the Usher household. As Roderick becomes more afraid of the house and what it contains, it can be said he is also not content with his family tree, since he would be the last living Usher, after Madeline’s soon demise. The ultimate result of Roderick’s last breath is a symbol of him being forever imprisoned in his fear, more likely the House of Usher, and will unfortunately never live again to know the meaning of true
Roderick and the fall of the house of usher have a deceiving appearance. Poe introduces “In this was much that reminded me of the specious totality of woodwork which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault with no disturbance from the breath of the external air” (312). After meeting Roderick and going inside the house, which appear to be normal, it is revealed that the interior is deteriorated. This home is void of others existence, excepting Roderick and Lady Madeleine. He has “A cadaverous of complexion, an eye large,liquid and luminous beyond comparison, lips somewhat thin and very pallid.” (363). It appears to the readers that Roderick has lost his soul due to his ghostly appearance. His illness has taken a toll on his outward appearance.”The ‘House Of Usher’ an appellation which seemed to include… both the family and the family mansion” (311). The house of usher reflects what is going on within the family. Craziness and neglection engulf Roderick’s as much the house. Roderick’s mental illness and the house are
The castles and mansions that provide the settings for traditional Gothic tales are full of grandeur, darkness, and decay. These settings are one of the most recognizable elements of traditional Gothic fiction. Setting is equally as important in modern Gothic literature as well. While the settings in the two stories, “Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe and “Where Is Here?” by Joyce Carol Oates, are incredibly different, they are also very similar.
Along with being an excellent potrail of suspense the ''dull, dark and soundless...decaying house'' also substitutes as a symbol of Roderick Usher's family legacy slowly vanishing as he shall too. Though the house of Usher could contain multiple symbols on its exterior alone, the lands as well contain hidden meanings such as the ''ghastly river...moat'' that surrounds the grounds. this gives off the hidden idea that much like Roderick, the narrator is trapped within deceiving and oppressive walls of the house of Usher. The house has become a beacon of symbolism as even in the final scene the house sinks into ''black and lurid tarn'' symbolizing that much like Roderick Usher, and the Usher legacy, the house shall become nothing more than a memory. Poe uses these symbols as to show the reader the severity of Roderick Usher's situations before Poe even introduces him.
Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother and father where both actors, David and Elizabeth Arnold. They had financial difficulties, which soon caused the father to abandon the family. Poe's mother soon had another child; however, she was having physical conditions causing her death on December 8, 1811. Becoming orphans, both Poe and his sister were split up in family friend’s houses. Poe went to live with the Allan's. As Poe grew up he started having problems with his John Allan, his foster father, which caused future problems. Poe's first step to start a career was attending the University of Virginia in 1826. "Allan failed to provide Poe with enough money for necessities such as furniture and books and Poe soon ran up a tremendous gambling debt and began drinking, despite his very low tolerance for alcohol" (Loveday 2). After a time he moved to Boston, "The Great Literature Capital." What was helping Poe start of his career, where the big hopes of one day becoming a writer despite the harsh life he had since he was little. Poe's work has had an impact on literature. Throughout his most famous pieces of literature, "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Raven," and "The Cast of Amontillado," we see common factors that influenced these types of works through his plots and characters. "Madness, alienation, and mankind's long love affair with morbidity were the his subjects, and he didn't mind admitting to being more to being more than half in love with easeful death, to mangle a line from his favorite poet, Tennyson," (Allen 2).
Poe also uses symbolism to represent the connection between the house and the Usher family. The description of the house itself has a shocking resemblance to that of Roderick and Madelyn Usher. Upon the main character’s arrival, Poe offers an interesting description of the building’s physical state. “The discoloration of age had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in fine tangled web-work from the eves” (1266). Poe is able to establish an air of suspense by relating the state of the house to that of Roderick and Madelyn Usher.
Edgar Allan Poe is undoubtedly one of American Literature's legendary and prolific writers, and it is normal to say that his works touched on many aspects of the human psyche and personality. While he was no psychologist, he wrote about things that could evoke the reasons behind every person's character, whether flawed or not. Some would say his works are of the horror genre, succeeding in frightening his audience into trying to finish reading the book in one sitting, but making them think beyond the story and analyze it through imagery. The "Fall of the House of Usher" is one such tale that uses such frightening imagery that one can only sigh in relief that it is just a work of fiction. However, based on the biography of Poe, events that surrounded his life while he was working on his tales were enough to show the emotions he undoubtedly was experiencing during that time.
Poe also uses symbolism to compare the deterioration of the house to the fall of the Usher dynasty. In Roderick’s poem, “The Haunted Palace”, he describes the history of the house as it began as a strong and “radiant palace”, which over time became a decrepit, disease-ridden cage. The radiant palace repres...
In "The Fall of the house of Usher," Edgar Allen Poe creates suspense and fear in the reader. He also tries to convince the reader not to let fear overcome him. Poe tries to evoke suspence in the reader's mind by using several diffenent scenes. These elements include setting, characters, plot, and theme. Poe uses setting primarily in this work to create atmosphere. The crack in the house and the dead trees imply that the house and its surroundings are not sturdy or promising. These elements indicate that a positive outcome is not expected. The thunder, strange light, and mist create a spooky feeling for the reader. The use of character provides action and suspense in the story through the characters' dialogue and actions. Roderick, who is hypochondriac, is very depressed. He has a fearful apperance and his senses are acute. This adds curiosity and anxiety. The narrator was fairly normal until he began to imagine things and become afraid himself. Because of this, the audience gets a sense that evil is lurking. Madeline is in a cataleptic state. She appears to be very weak and pail. Finally, when she dies, she is buried in a vault inside of the mansion. In this story, the plot consists of rising events, conflict, climax, and resolution. The rising events include the parts in the story when the narrator first arrives at the house, meets Roderick, and hears about Roderick's and Madeline's problems. Madeline's death and burial are part of the conflict. At this point, Roderick and the narrator begin to hear sounds throughout the house. The sounds are an omen that an evil action is about to occur. The climax is reached when Madeline comes back from the dead and she and her twin brother both die. Finally, the resolution comes when the narrator escapes from the house and turns around to watch it fall to the ground. The theme that Edgar Allen Poe is trying to convey is do not let fear take over your life because it could eventually destory you.
The Fall Of The House of Usher is a terrifying tale of the demise of the Usher family, whose inevitable doom is mirrored in the diseased and evil aura of the house and grounds. Poe uses elements of the gothic tale to create an atmosphere of terror. The decaying house is a metaphor for Roderick Usher’s mind, as well as his family line. The dreary landscape also reflects his personality. Poe also uses play on words to engage the reader to make predictions, or provide information. Poe has also set the story up to be intentionally ambiguous so that the reader is continually suspended between the real and the fantastic.
Beside his illness and his sister dieing, Roderick believes his condition is being controlled by the house. He call on the narrator a boyhood friend to in a last ditch effort to cheer his life up and give him someone to communicate with. The narrator arrives to a house of gloom, darkness and decaying furniture. He immediately is afraid for his life and how his friend can live a house of darkness. Several days past and it is filled with art discussions, guitar playing, and literature reading, all to keep Roderick's mind busy from the reality that he is losing his mind. The narrator and Roderick prematurely enconffined Madeline in a vault in a hope to alleviate his metal condition. She is either dead, in a coma, or a vampire. You don't know but Poe allows the reader to make there own assumptions.
An author's use of literary devices creates mental images for the reader and keeps the reader interested throughout the narrative. In "The Fall of the House of Usher", Poe uses suspense, symbolism, and Gothic elements, such as dark atmospheres, because his purpose is to make the reader anticipate upcoming events in the story.
Poe can be seen mocking the Gothic theme of sexuality and sexual interaction between characters, such themes of the Gothic genre were even being taken to a point that they “were intensified in many Gothic works” (Fisher 76) by other Gothic writers. The reader can see the mockery of this exaggerated and sometimes overpowering theme in Poe’s writing as he describes the Usher’s family as a “family [that] lay in the direct line of descent,” (Poe 5) giving hint to a family tree made on the basis of incest between all of its members. This hint allows the reader to conclude that Roderick Usher may have kept that trend continued with his sister Madeline, and possessed such guilt about taking place in this action as to attempt to bury her alive. On the same hand, Poe mocks the destruction of Gothic characters through psychological means. As Roderick converses with the narrator, Roderick states that “I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, Fear.” (Poe 10) This exaggerated insight into Roderick himself and his deep fears allows the reader to see his internal struggle and Poe’s mockery of the genre through Roderick’s insanity and the destruction of Roderick due to
The Fall of The House of Usher is an eerie, imaginative story. The reader is captured by the twisted reality. Many things in the story are unclear to the reader; but no less interesting. For instance, even the conclusion of the story lends it self to argument. Did the house of Usher truly "fall"? Or, is this event simply symbolism? In either case, it makes a dramatic conclusion. Also dramatic is the development of the actual house. It seems to take on a life of its own. The house is painted with mystery. The narrator himself comments on the discerning properties of the aged house; "What was it, I paused to think, what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the house of Usher" (54)? The house is further developed in the narrator's references to the house. "...In this mansion of gloom" (55). Even the surroundings serve the purpose. The narrator describes the landscape surrounding as having, "... an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden hued" (55). This fantastic imagery sets the mood of the twisted events. Roderick Usher complements the forbidding surroundings terrifically. His temperament is declining and he seems incessantly agitated and nervous. And, as it turns out, Roderick's fears are valid. For soon enough, before his weakening eyes, stands the Lady Madeline of Usher. This shocking twist in the story is developed through the book that the narrator is reading. The last line that he reads is, "Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door" (66)! Without suspecting such an event, the reader soon finds Lady Madeline actually standing at the door. She is described as having, "...blood on her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame" (66). This line not only induces terror but invites debate. Upon seeing the woman the reader has to consider the cause of her death.
Poe’s works are always twisted or disturbed. The endings are not always specific, which leaves it up to the reader to determine what they want to conclude about the story. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick and Madeline Usher were both slowly but surely dying in the House of Usher. While some may argue they were dying from a disease, it is more likely a haunting or a supernatural occurrence based on some details in the story. There cannot possibly be that many coincidences in such a short span of time such as the unexplained medical condition, heightened senses, their appearance, resurrection, etc. It is evident that these so-called coincidences happening to Roderick and Madeline support the argument that they may actually be vampires based upon the
The story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, chronicles the narrator’s descent into madness because of living and caring for Roderick Usher. Poe uses Usher as the method in which the narrator goes insane and Madeline as a way to reflect the narrator’s own mental state. Roderick’s own fear led him to wanting another to be with him to share his fear and state. At the end of the story everything that happened was a figment of the narrator’s imagination and an example of the effects Roderick had on the narrator. Furthermore the collapse of the house itself was symbolic of the narrator escaping the grasp of insanity. The effects the house, Roderick, and Madeline are implied throughout the story and the outcome is evident in the ending.