The Fall Of The House Of Usher By Edgar Allan Poe

An analytical essay discussing the importance of setting in The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe and Where is Here, by Joyce Carol Oates.

Most immediately, Roderick’s hair is described as “wild” and of “Arabesque expression,” which the narrator is unable to connect “with any simple idea of humanity” (Poe 2003).  Similarly, Roderick’s manner strikes the narrator with “an incoherence – an inconsistency,” and his voice is compared to that of “the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium” (Poe 2003), all of which mark his social difference as not understandable.  After the entombment of his sister, Roderick’s external madness intensifies: he roams with “unequal, and objectless step,” has a “more ghastly hue” of face, a “species of mad hilarity in his eyes,” a “restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor,” and speaks in a “gibbering murmur” (Poe 2003).  But all of these are, as the narrator puts it, “the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness” (Poe 2003).  When it comes to representing the internal process of mental breakdown, Poe (at least in this story) still only describes Roderick’s irrationality from an external and stereotypical position.  Roderick describes his condition as a “deplorable folly” that will force him to “abandon life and reason,” he is “enchained by certain superstitious impressions,” and suffers from “melancholy” and “hypochondria” (two terms associated with earlier misunderstandings of madness) (Poe 2003).  The only time we see the irrational thought process represented is in Roderick’s monologue about entombing his

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

While most of the primary characters in the American Gothic cannon are members of the aristocracy, their societally dominant position does not guarantee them satisfying lives. The focus of this analysis will be the portrayal of the individual as it relates to his or her economic status: does having wealth mean that upper class characters are more likely to lead fulfilling lives than middle/lower class characters? Through a close reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables, Kate Chopin’s “Désirée’s Baby,” and Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome, readers can clearly see a pattern of social commentary in which the members of the aristocracy are—in general—the most restricted,

Edgar Allan Poe used fear to attract his readers into his gothic world. Poe realized that fear intrigues as well as frightens, and sew it as a perfect motif for many of his stories, particularly The Fall of the House of Usher. Poe emphasized the mysterious, desolate, and gloomy surroundings throughout the story to set up the fear that got the reader involved. Then he extended the fear to the characters in order to reveal the importance of facing and overcoming fear. Poe suggested in the story that the denial of fears can lead to madness and insanity. This has clearly shown through the weakening of Roderick Usher's mind and the resulting impact on the narrator of the story.

The human imagination is a powerful tool that sometimes is very hard to control, if it can be controlled at all. In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe uses imagination as a key tool to make the story come to life.

A Sense of Tension in The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

Roderick’s unusual and obsessive behavior regarding his sister, Madeline, is due to several factors. When Roderick and the narrator are engaged in discussing Roderick’s need for a resolution to his grim illness, Madeline “passed through a remote portion of the apartment” (Poe). Momentarily stunned by her presence, the attention of the narrator shifts away from Roderick. When he again looks to his friend, he finds Roderick burying “his face in his hands” and he perceives “that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears” (Poe). Roderick’s grief over his sister’s declining

In the story, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, there are many mysterious happenings that go on throughout the story between the characters Roderick Usher and the narrator. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe uses themes such as madness and insanity to connect the house back to Roderick Usher. In the “Fall of The House of Usher”, the narrator goes through many different experiences when arriving to the house. The narrator’s experiences start out as almost unnoticeable in the beginning, turn into bigger ones right before his eyes, and end up becoming problems that cause deterioration of the mind and the house before the narrator even decides to do anything helpful for Roderick and his mental illness. In “The Fall of The

Edgar Allan Poe was a unique man that most people could not understand. Many recognize that he is a talented writer with a very strange and dark style. One of his most well known short stories is “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.” Many argue the different meanings of this story and how it is symbolic to his life. Poe was a very confused individual who needed to express himself, he accomplished this through the short story of “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.” Through this story, Edgar was trying to show the fear he had for him self, he did not understand him self so therefore Poe ran from his own personality and mind. This story enables the reader to take a look at Poe’s mind and

Roderick Usher, the head of the house, is and educated man. He comes from a wealty family and owns a huge house. He seemed to have once been an attractive man in the way the narrator described him to be. However, his appearance deteriorated over time. When the narrator finally saw Roderick, his appearance had completely altered. The narrator notes various symptoms of insanity from Roderick’s behavior: “in the manner of my friend I was struck with an incoherence and inconsitency...habitual trepidancy, and excessive nervous agitation...His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision...to that....of a lost drunkard, or the erreclaimable eater of opium”. Roderick’s state worsens throughout the story. He becomes increasingly restless and unstable, especially after the burial of his sister.

Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "The Fall of the House of Usher", using characterization, and imagery to depict fear, terror, and darkness on the human mind. Roderick and his twin sister, Madeline, are the last of the all time-honored House of Usher (Jacobs and Roberts, pg. 462). They are both suffering from rather strange illnesses, which may be attributed to the intermarriage of the family. Roderick suffers from "a morbid acuteness of the senses"(464), while Madeline's illness is characterized by " a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent all though transient affections of a partly cataleptical character"(465) which caused her to lose consciousness and feeling. The

The narrator comes to the House to aid his dying friend, Roderick Usher. As he arrives at the House he comes upon an “aura of vacancy and decay… creating a pathologically depressive mood” (Cook). The state of the House is daunting to the narrator – he describes it with such features as “bleak walls”, “eye-like windows”, “rank sedges”, “decayed trees”, and “an utter depression of the soul”. These images foreshadow a less than pleasant future for the narrator and his dear friend Roderick. Poe continues to foreshadow the narrators turn of events with a description of the House’s “dark” and “comfortless” furniture. The House becomes a living hell for the narrator as he watches Roderick’s condition evolve and struggles to understand the mystery tying unfortunate events together. However, as the narrator gradually becomes more enveloped in Roderick and the House’s malady, he seems to develop a malady of his own. While the narrator’s illness is less prominent than that of Roderick and his sister Lady Madeline, the sicknesses are one in the same.

The character on this story has a feeling of dread, as he describes it; “I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse if the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.” (Poe, The fall of the House of Usher). With these the author let the reader think that the character was indeed scare by the looks of the

“If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered” written by Stephen King himself from his novel “Salem’s Lot”, stating if you cannot express fear, it can't be conquered. Unfortunately in the short stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Edgar Allan Poe, and “House Taken Over”, by Julio Cortázar, haunted houses caused the characters from both stories to get tugged into fearful situations that they don't even know themselves why that is. As both stories progress, the fear of the unknown tends to grow stronger the more the characters try to ignore it. All the running and hiding leads to the character's own downfalls. Although, both stories fall into different genres they do share the same idea; the fear of the unknown. Cortázar