Roderick Usher Research Paper

Roderick has the vampire’s symptoms which are heightened senses and being overwhelmingly emotional and the looks of a vampire which are pale skin, long hair, and pale lips. Even with all this evidence, people still believe the Ushers aren’t vampires. As stated in the first paragraph, Poe never states if the Ushers have an actual illness or if they are vampires, but Poe leaves many clues hinting to us readers that the Ushers are vampires. The arguments between these choices may interest individuals in vampires as well. With all the evidence included in this essay, it is evident that the Ushers are

"In the manner of my friend I was struck with an incoherence -- an inconsistency...habitual trepidancy, and excessive nervous agitation...His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision...to that...of the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium" (p. 667). Roderick shaken seals her up in the tomb anyways, was this to terminate the Usher line or to end his own life by killing his doppleganger? Both of the remaining Ushers were psychologically unstable, I believe this instability ran throughout the family. The incesstual Ushers genetically passed down their mutated traits, while Rodericks physically appearance was not harmed, his mind that was the mutilated part. Filled with irrationality and overcome with fear. To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. "I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their

Roderick Usher’s unnamed illness causes him to be frightened of sounds, lights and smells. He believes that his family’s house is evil and alive. He is starting to suffer due to keeping his family's history of incest a secret from the rest of the world. His illness is more mental than physical, his nerves causes him to have extreme anxiety from keeping such a significant secret combined with his actual physical health due

Specifically, Hooper’s spasmodic behavior leads him to wear a black veil over his face, which comes short just above his mouth. “There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil.” (Hawthorne 2). Living in a deeply religious society, as well as being a preacher, wearing such an inappropriate garment is asking for persecution. “ He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder, till Mr. Hooper had ascended the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his congregation, except for the black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath…” (Hawthorne 3). All eyes are on the minister; his status does not bring him this attention, but the mystery and the astonishment of the black veil. The veil and Hooper are one; both are religiously symbolic and are the center of the

Many people look at him in a strange way because that black veil usually represents a bad sign that is dark. Many people thought that he was wearing the black veil because he had killed someone or done some other bad and dark things. But Mr Hooper does not wear it because he killed someone. There is a Priest that is known to wear a black veil But he did not wear it because he killed someone in a bad way. He will wear it because he did kill someone, but it was unintentional, it was his friend and he killed him by accident and he felt really bad and sorry about it that he decided to wear a black veil for the rest of his life in memory of his friend that he will remember for the rest of his life. in ( Nathaniel Hawthorne 337) it introduces him wearing the black veil, and in ( Nathaniel Hawthorne 338 ) they explain the secret scene which it is not what people thought that it would be they were thinking a whole different thing. I personally was thinking a different bad reason why he was wearing that, I was thinking that he had killed someone.

Roderick Usher is a victim of circumstance. The House he has known his whole life seems to have turned against him. Poe

Hooper may have seen his sin and may have been scared of the person he saw when he looked in the mirror. He realized the feeling that everyone else felt when they looked at him. Mr.Hooper would not take black veil off anywhere even when he was alone. He took the wearing of the veil so far that he even slept with it on. Mr. Hooper sacrificed his happiness, his marriage, his communication with the world all because of the black veil. He isolated himself from everyone else and set himself up for a lonely life filled with sadness. He said “This dismal shade must separate me from the world; even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!” (Hawthorne 242). He took the idea of secret sin farther than the normal person would and that is why he is such a romantic character.

Our source tells us that the Usher House was shrouded in gloom and misery, so much so that Roderick Usher believed his house was “sentient”. Usher, a slave to his terror and anxiety, spent his remaining days worried over the death of his

Due to the lack of social interaction between the two, literary expert Craig Howes believes the already mad Roderick now “draws the narrator into madness,” (Howes). Now that Roderick has become less sociable with the narrator and there is one less person in the house, the narrator lacks the social interactions required by most humans. He feels uneasy about the “corpse” they have entombed and begins to fear the initial dark and gloom of the house itself both inside and out.

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 character Roderick Usher represents the unconscious mind. He really doesn’t have any common sense. Overtime, Roderick started having weird behaviors he wasn’t like how he used to be like the narrator had said. Also Roderick became restless and unstable because the burial of his sister Madeline. Roderick Ushers also represents the unconscious because

James Hall Jr. is an American paleontologist and geologist who was widely recognized as Americas most well-known geologist during the 19th century. Hall was born in Hingham, Massachusetts on September 12th, 1811 and spent most of his childhood in this area of the US. Hall was fortunate to have a gifted teacher in his public school who stimulated his interest science. The teacher also had a very keen interest in nature which some believe think guided Hall into the world of earth sciences. Later, in his teenage years Hall was interested in attending a new college in Troy, New York which emphasized hands-on learning and “out of the box” thinking. Hall graduated which honors in 1832 and immediately started working out in the field all around New York state. Just 6 years later one of Hall’s most important surveys and scientific works was to commence.

Roderick Usher obviously isn’t well, parts of his infliction seems to manifest themselves physically, in his overly-acute senses, his illness is mainly a mental illness. His sister is catacleptic and wasting away, Roderick is tormented by his own fear.

     Family is a prevailing theme in this story. The tale essentially documents the demise of a family name. The Ushers have been a significant and reputable family: their house is of considerably large size, they are apparently well educated, and they have servants. On the other hand, they have not produced enough offspring in order for their lineage to persevere. Furthermore, Roderick claims that the nervous exhaustion he continually suffers is hereditary. Therefore,

We know little of his background, and we never even learn his name. He was childhood friends with Roderick Usher. He arrives on horseback at the house with the intention of helping Usher. Though he details precisely the nature of Usher's madness, it is suggested through the course of the narrative that he too may be losing his sanity. Indeed, given his terrified description of the ghastly house in the opening passages of the tale, the reader must wonder whether he was sane from the