Edgar Allan Poe'sHouse Taken Over, And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Fear is among one of the most universal human emotions that everyone is interconnected at one point or another during their lifetime. In the gothic stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “House Taken Over” written by Edgar Allan Poe and Julio Cortazar respectively. Edgar Allen Poe writes about how the character Mr. Usher, who because of his mental illness and delusions, cannot come to terms with his reality. Cortazar writes about the relationship between a brother and sister who have normal everyday lives and have strange and odd nightmare that haunts them. The

“‘Her decease,’ he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “ would leave him the last of the ancient race of the Ushers”’(Poe). The narrator's exaggeration stretches the differences between the Usher’s and standard families. Roderick Usher’s desperation affects him in a negative way as he only has one relationship in his life for the many years that he has been isolated for. His dependence on Madeline allows any influence by her to affect him negatively without any interference. The narrator notes the “striking similitude” between the two Usher siblings, as siblings it is surmised that they resemble each other, but the author draws attention to this detail, as if proposing another more complicated factor about their relationship on account of an† alliteration (Poe). This observation advocates an even closer relationship between the two siblings. Which can provide a better explanation for why she had to come back from the vault to kill Roderick, as they were twins, which were born together and must die together. Finally, Stein postulates that Roderick Usher’s mental state “cannot be clearly understood unless it is directly related to the illness of his twin sister.” Stein conveys that Roderick’s mental illness is a consequence of his relationship with Madeline. As twins they share the same mind through a certain supernatural way allowing her unnamed problem to directly affect him. The relationship between Madeline and Roderick expresses the twin relationship intrudes Roderick’s mind and his dependence on Madeline allows for negative influence on him to be

In the Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe uses mental illness to demonstrate the decay of the Usher family bloodline. Roderick and Madeline are unusual as they come from a singular line of the Usher family. Although they have been split in two as twins so they have split energies. Madeline embodied the feminine energies and Roderick the masculine. Their split can be interpreted as the separation Poe used as a part of their fallen world. The story can be read as an allegory of destructive transcendence. The Usher family had been unified until these twins they represented separation. They must both ultimately be destroyed in order to reunite. After generations of incest within the family, Madeline and Usher have been compromised, they are both unwell. People in the soundring town referrered to the house and the family inside as The House of Usher. Both Roderick and Madeline are unwell mentally and physically that eventually takes it’s toll on them. The House is also ill, it decays along with the family.

Another story told in the first-person, “Fall of the House of Usher” is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, as he visits a childhood friend, Roderick Usher. The only other major character in the story is Madeline Usher, Roderick’s twin sister. The story takes place in Roderick’s manor, which has fallen into a state of extreme disrepair. The narrator takes note of this dilapidation, and the estate’s condition becomes a key theme in the story. Roderick’s quarters are dimly lit, with barely any light coming in through the windows. Later in the story, a severe storm hits, and the Narrator is in his room as the estate weathers it.

The house of the usher had a sad and tragic ending. Madeline’s death was unhuman and very sad. The storm was very traumatic and destructive. Roderick mental illness caused unfortunate events and affected everyone around him. The ushers was the cause of the destruction of the house was a tragedy because Madeline’s death caused the house to become gloomy, Roderick illness caused problems, and the storm destroyed the

It seems that auditory hallucinations affect both Usher and the narrator. Then Roderick becomes unnerved and confesses that he heard feeble movements in his twin sister’s coffin – meaning that they buried her alive – and yet did not dare to say anything. But why didn’t he? It might be argued that Roderick and Madeline had an incestuous relationship and Usher was either afraid that his sister (who now suddenly can talk and move) would tell, or because he was tormented by the guilt of having engaged in such a relationship and wanted to bury it — literally. This statement may seem far-fetched but that could explain why “the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain”, and Madeline and Roderick’s health problems in

The Fall of the House of Usher is another one of Edgar Allen Poe’s mysterious short stories that leave the audience with many unanswered questions. The narrator arrives at the House of Usher that is owned by his childhood friend Roderick Usher whom he wishes to help. Roderick Usher isn't actually diagnosed with any sort of definite mental disorder although we do know something isn’t right in his mind. Along with that, he is utterly and extremely scared of fear itself which leads him to believe that he may indeed die of the fear that he is filled with. Roderick’s twin sister, Madeline, suffers from catalepsy and has seizures frequently. One day, Roderick tells the narrator that she is dead when really she is just in the midst of a seizure.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe is an ominous tale, told in retrospect, of a man who visited an old friend, Roderick Usher, who was dying of a mental illness. This visit was quite different then how the narrator believed it would be. The narrator explained the “insufferable gloom” he felt when he saw the mansion, and this dreary feeling only grew stronger the longer he stayed (Poe 1265). The narrator endured the bleak time with his old friend whose condition only worsened. Roderick’s sister was ill as well and eventually died. They buried her in the basement only to have her crawl out alive days later. This shock scared Roderick to death while the sister’s illness finally took her life. The narrator ran out of the mansion completely unnerved as the House of Usher crumbled to the ground.

When Roderick eventually meets his demise, the house goes with him, and its collapse marks the end of the Usher lineage. After running for his life to escape the house, the narrator watches the foundation crumble to pieces as the “fissure rapidly widened -- there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind -- the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon [his] sight -- [his] brain reeled as [he] saw the mighty walls rushing asunder” (327). Roderick’s ancestors are eerily represented in the mansion. His death destroys the mansion along with all reminiscence of his ghostly ancestors. Hence, Poe highlights the central idea that fear and paranoia can be represented through inanimate objects, as demonstrated in the frightening setting of Roderick’s

As he begins to spend more time with Usher and his house, he begins to see a similarity between the two siblings; a similarity in which he “ did not [arrest his] attention” to earlier (319). When the narrator first arrived at the House of Usher, he was very unsure and fearful of what was going to happen, but now that he has gotten a little used to the house, he is beginning to see things a little clearer. The fear affects his ability to trust his own perception, but as he becomes more acquainted with his surroundings, his vision is not as cloudy. At the very end of the story moments before the house falls, Usher and the narrator find Lady Madeline “trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold” (325). To the narrator, Lady Madeline dies and is put in an entombment; now she is

During the days that followed his sister's death, Roderick Usher roamed aimlessly, stared blankly into space, the luster gone from his eyes. Late one night, the Narrator found himself unable to sleep, and a terror took hold of in which he felt Usher’s condition infecting him. As he paced, Usher entered his room, with, “a species of mad hilarity in his eyes … restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor" (Poe, 372).

In the “Fall of the house of Usher”, Edgar Allan Poe delves into the relationship of twins, Madeline and Roderick Usher. Poe illustrates in this gothic that their relationship is unusual and can be described as twisted at times. The dynamic between the two is unsettling. The usher’s lives seem to revolve around each other and the house they live in. Though their mutual suffering of illness, should bring them closer Poe creates a tense connotation that separates them.

The imagination loses drive as it ceases to cling to what is real. In Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Fall of the House of Usher" we look into the story of the narrator who was recently invited by his longtime childhood friend who his slowly losing his mind, over his constant paranoia. When we look into the other novel "House Taken Over" by Julio Cortazar we see two siblings who live in their childhood home. Beyond this house brings a fear to the siblings, but showing rarely any emotion to the outside world, bringing them close to insanity by letting paranoia overcrowd them. One of the most common situations in which imagination can overcome reason is under extreme pressures of fear or paranoia.

From past experience, terror is often a characteristic one associates with in eerie or frightening situations. In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe portrays an uncomfortable environment between our three main characters. He presents the history of a dying direct line of descent within the Usher family and the many difficulties that come with having this type of family tree. This story encompasses illness, drama, and disturbance, which add to the mood/theme of the novel. Poe uses the setting, characters, and the element, The Haunted Palace, in order to create the single effect of terror in The Fall of the House of Usher.

Fear is a human characteristic that everyone must struggle with. This theme is a universal one which everyone can relate to however, it is also a difficult one to capture within a short story. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the few classic writers who are able to achieve this feat. His story "The Fall of the House of Usher" is centred around the central idea of the impact of fear on one's life. His parable talks about facing your fears and the self-destruction that can come by allowing fear to run your life. Through his Gothic romantic style of writing, Poe includes elements such as a dark atmosphere, a mysterious setting, and symbolic characters in order to highlight the power and effect of fear on one's life. "The Fall of the House of Usher"