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After reading Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, Fall of the House of Usher, the audience is introduced to some very abnormally behaved characters, one of them being the main character Roderick Usher. Throughout the entire story Roderick Usher shows many signs of abnormal behavior and mental illness. From a psychoanalytic perspective he shows many symptoms and signs of schizophrenia. While reading the story I noticed that many things that Roderick Usher did and said seemed very out of the ordinary, one of the very obvious signs of schizophrenia is incoherent speech and Roderick Usher is described to have it when the narrator says, “His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision…to that…of the drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium.”
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
This paper will explore the connection of schizophrenia with Poe’s The Fall of The House of Usher (1839). This paper suggests that the characters of the twins Roderick Usher and Madeline Usher are not two characters, but in fact are one character
Roderick Usher is frequently subject to both confusion and delusion alike throughout the story. Both are indicitave of the genetic disorder schizophrenia. Usher frequently references his belief that the house is alive and has a will of it's own. Those who suffer from schizophrenia have a tendency to be abnormally superstitious about everyday objects. Known by the medical community as delusions, these beliefs "result from the patient's inability to separate real from unreal events." (Ford-Martin, Odle, Costello 5) While reality may dictate that houses do not have a concious, Usher's mental disorder blurs the line between reality and the supernatural. "In other words," Jonathan A. Cook argues, "the whole physical world, both animate and inanimate,"
The character Roderick Usher is extremely sick in the story. This change from human expectations of a healthy man is scary. Even a sick human is never described to be in as bad of a condition as Usher. Expectations are also broken with his sister, Madeline Usher. She shatters the expectation by going from dead to alive and being drastically different when she becomes undead. She is not how we think of a human when she comes back in both looks and attitude. She perfectly fits the description of a zombie, besides the eating flesh characteristic. One final and wonderful example of transformation scaring us in this story is the narrator’s sanity. As he is influenced by Roderick Usher, he slowly starts acting like his mentally ill friend. Not only does this change the narrator’s attitude, but the reader’s experience as well. This is because this is the only point of view a reader will get from this story. This is scary because the truth is hard to decipher. Is the narrator telling the truth, or has his madness wiped that aspect
Macbeth's tragic downfall into insanity could be diagnosed as the mental disorder schizophrenia. Many of Macbeth’s actions during the play can make the reader to believe that Macbeth is crazy. However, by today's medical standards, Macbeth falls into several of the categories under the diagnosis of schizophrenia.This is a severe brain disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior. Even though Macbeth shows various characteristics of other mental disorders, the symptoms he presents of schizophrenia are dominant in comparison.
described it less violently than Poe."The Fall of the House of Usher" shows Poe's ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt These emotions center on Roderick Usher, who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease. Like the narrator in “The Tall Tale Heart, his disease inflames his hyperactive senses. The illness manifests physically but is based in Roderick's mental or even moral state. He is sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his family's history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypochromic. Then in the other story the author explains differently
By giving insight into Roderick Usher’s life, Poe reveals how individuals can make themselves believe they are mentally ill. From the start of story, it is revealed that the narrator has been requested by Usher to help him through his “acute bodily illness” (18). The narrator immediately leaves
Edgar Allan Poe may be the most literate madman to ever have lived. As a boy, he took an interest in poetry, and as he cultivated his poetic abilities, he began to write short stories that reflected his life. When Poe’s wife died and he took up drinking, his stories only waxed in depth and meaning since they were already rife with thought and emotion. Possibly suffering from manic depression, Poe wrote as a way to vent his mind and convey the ideas he had during his episodes. In one of his short stories, The Fall of the House of Usher, an anonymous narrator meets with Roderick Usher, his decrepit friend from the past, before watching him and the House of Usher crumble. Utilizing tone, motifs, and foreshadowing, Poe establishes his belief that time and isolation is the ultimate cause of demise.
An unnamed narrator comes into the House of Usher (a mansion house owned by his friend Roderick Usher). Of late, Roderick has been ailing by a sickness of the mind.
In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” the narrator is the main character who mainly speaks throughout the story, in the first sentence of the story he describes the day being “dull, dark, and soundless” as he is on his way to the House of Usher (McMichael). This could symbolize, and foreshadow, the dark secrets and doom he will soon face when he arrives to the house. As the narrator also describes the day being “dark as the clouds are hanging oppressively low in the sky” (McMichael), in the first sentence of the story I analyze this as a psychological allusion of him feeling depression and perhaps even anxious as he approaches the House of Usher not knowing of the things he will learn about Roderick Usher and the things he will soon experience. Throughout the story we begin to learn that Roderick Usher is suffering from some type of mental illness. The story “The Fall of the House of Usher” has many psychological and symbolic allusions that lead the reader to finding out about the mental illness or bipolar
The majority of his stories are based on the same recurrent motifs such as: crime, murder, evil, madness, burrying alive or corpses making sounds. Moreover, in almost all of them Poe introduced some Gothic elements: a gloomy and mysterious landscape or a haunted house. But the motif that is most noticeable in almost all of his works is that of a split personality. One of such stories is The Fall of the House of Usher. The narrator receives a letter from his friend form childhood, Roderick Usher, telling him that he is in need of his assistance. As he arrives the first thing that catches his attention is the house of his friend. It is in dilapidated condition and the murky and gloom surroundings fill him with a weird sense of mystery: " With the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit[...]" The narrator finds his friend in a similar condition. His complexion is pale and he seems to be subdued. During his stay in the house he learns that Roderick suffers from...
Edgar Allan Poe is notorious for his use of imagery. As he begins his account of his reunion with Roderick Usher in “The Fall of the House of Ushe...
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest of intelligence,” Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is famous in the writing world and has written many amazing stories throughout his gloomy life. At a young age his parents died and he struggled with the abuse of drugs and alcohol. A great amount of work he created involves a character that suffers with a psychological problem or mental illness. Two famous stories that categorize Poe’s psychological perspective would be “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Both of these stories contain many similarities and differences of Poe’s psychological viewpoint.
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.
In the story “The Fall of The house of Usher” Roderick takes part in many different sophisticated activities. Those activities include composing music, reading great works of demonic literature, and creating illustrious works of art. In the story it mentions how Roderick’s works of art were “phantasmagoric” and the story reads “If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher.” (Poe 11). Roderick Usher loves the fine arts. As it is shown through his cultivative works of art and the music he writes, he is a very creative man. Rodericks undying love for the fine arts makes him the perfect specimen to represent intelligence and the human brain. Also similar to the human brain Roderick is very sensitive. In the story it mentioned how he was a fragile human being, someone who was looked upon as abnormal. The description of his delicate skin, and fragile senses are key examples. A Quote from the story. “He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses;... he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light;” (Poe 9) All of these characteristics of Roderick Usher correlate to one another, and can compare to that of the sensitive human