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The people and peasantry also confuse the house with the family as the physical structure effectively portrays the genetic pattern of the family. Poe also creates confusion between the inanimate and living objects by doubling the house of Usher to the genetic family line of the Usher family. The narrator refers to the house of Usher as the family line of the Usher Family.
by Edgar Allan Poe
Roderick and Madeline are the only remaining members of the Usher family. ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ can also be analysed as a deeply telling autobiographical portrait, in which Roderick Usher represents, or reflects, Poe himself. After all, Roderick Usher is a poet and artist, well-read (witness the assortment of books which he and the narrator read together), sensitive and indeed overly sensitive (to every sound, taste, sight, touch, and so on). Many critics have interpreted the story as, in part, an autobiographical portrait of Poe himself, although we should be wary, perhaps, of speculating too much about any parallels. The secret that is buried and then comes to light (represented by Madeline) is never revealed.
“The Haunted Palace”
Roderick’s mental inability to differentiate from reality and fantasy correspond to his sister’s physical weakness. These characters are employed by Poe to explore the relationship and philosophical mystery between body and mind. He illustrates himself as a mind to her body and suffers from the mental counterpart of his sister’s physical illness. Like the narrator of the story of “Tell-Tale Heart,” the hyperactive senses of Roderick Usher are inflamed by his disease.
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Like so many of Poe's stories, the setting here is inside a closed environment. From the time the unnamed narrator enters the House of Usher until the end of the story when he flees in terror, the entire story is boxed within the confines of the gloomy rooms on an oppressive autumn day where every object and sound is attenuated to the over-refined and over-developed sensitivities of Roderick Usher. The first five paragraphs of the story are devoted to creating a gothic mood — that is, the ancient decaying castle is eerie and moldy and the surrounding moat seems stagnant.
8 Notable Edgar Allan Poe References in 'The Fall of the House of Usher' - TV Insider
8 Notable Edgar Allan Poe References in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'.
Posted: Sat, 14 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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The claustrophobia of the house of Usher has a deep influence on the relationship among the characters of the story. Due to claustrophobia, the narrator is not able to realize that Roderick and Madeline are twins. Moreover, he is confined, and the cramped setting of the tomb metaphorically characterizes the characters.
The narrator observes that the house seems to have absorbed an evil and diseased atmosphere from the decaying trees and murky ponds around it. He notes that although the house is decaying in places—individual stones are disintegrating, for example—the structure itself is fairly solid. There is only a small crack from the roof to the ground in the front of the building. He has come to the house because his friend Roderick sent him a letter earnestly requesting his company.
The sleep of reason produces monsters When reason leaves the imagination
Roderick Usher and the narrator are childhood friends, but Roderick haschanged drastically since the narrator last saw him. In the beginning, he goes back and forth from sullenness andnervous agitation to liveliness. A mysterious and incurable illness plagues himand causes his senses to be highly reactive.
Its main character, William Stendahl, builds a house based on the specifications from Poe's story to murder his enemies. An interpretation which has more potential, then, is the idea that the ‘house of Usher’ is a symbol of the mind, and it is this analysis which has probably found the most favour with critics. Sigmund Freud would, over half a century after Poe was writing, do more than anyone else to delineate the structure of the conscious and unconscious mind, but he was not the first to suggest that our conscious minds might hide, or even repress, unconscious feelings, fears, neuroses, and desires.
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I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment --that of looking down within the tarn--had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition--for why should I not so term it? Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy --a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me.
Inshort, the narrator assists his host in entombing the body temporarily in,first, a coffin with its lid screwed down, and then in a vault behind a massiveiron door of profound weight. There she remains for a week, as Roderick roamsthrough his house aimlessly, or sits and stares vacantly at nothing for longhours. His sister’s illness is only one reason for Roderick’s agitation, one reasonfor his desire to have the “solace” of the narrator’s companionship; it is notthe only—or most significant—reason. Usher himself is suffering from a “mentaldisorder,” which is “a constitutional and .
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp, grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges. “Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread; and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings.
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