Analysis of Edgar Allan Poes The Fall of the House of Usher Literary Theory and Criticism
Table Of Content
Therefore, they formed a direct line of descent with no branches from outside. With its estate, the Usher family becomes so much identified that people often confuse the inhabitants with the home. The narrator has visited the house because Roderick Usher has sent him a letter that sincerely asks him to give him company. In the letter, Roderick has mentioned that he has been physically and emotionally ill due to which the narrator has rushed to help his friend. Hezekiah Usher House could provide a source of inspiration for Poe’s story. The sources indicate that the owner of the house caught a sailor and his young wife in the house and entombed them in their place of trysting.
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Because Poe intentionally leaves the story without a lesson, the onlyresolution is the sight of the tarn and the realization that neither the familynor the house will ever be seen again. As the narrator reads of the night’s forcible entry into the dwelling, cracking and ripping sounds are heard somewhere in the house when the Dragon is described as shrieking as it dies, a shriek is heard, again within the house. As he relates the shield falling from off the wall, a reverberation, metallic and hollow, can be heard. Roderick becomes increasingly hysterical, and eventually exclaims that these sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed and that the narrator knew that she was alive. The bedroom door is then blown open to reveal Madeline standing there.
Literary Qualities
Poe imagines what would happen if the connection between the body and mind are served and assigned to different people. The imagery of the twin and the incestuous history in Ushers’ family line shows Roderick is inseparable from his sister. Poe maintains the idea that even though the mind and body are inseparable, they depend on each other for survival.
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Roderick admits he believes theUsher house is sentient and that a foul atmosphere grows from the grounds. Hestates that the house has moulded generations of the Usher family and hascaused his current state. Roderick decides to keep his sister preserved in ahouse vault before moving her to the isolated family cemetery.
Further reading
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In 1830, when the house was torn down, two bodies were found in the cellar cavity. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the narrator visits his childhood friend, Roderick Usher. La Chute de la maison Usher is a 1928 silent French horror film directed by Jean Epstein starring Marguerite Gance, Jean Debucourt, and Charles Lamy. The final paragraph supports this view in that the actions occur during the "full blood-red moon," a time during which vampires are able to prey upon fresh victims.
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The narrator begins to suspect that Roderick is harbouring some dark secret. The story is narrated by a childhood friend of Roderick Usher, the owner of the Usher mansion. This friend is riding to the house, having been summoned by Roderick Usher, having complained in his letter that he is suffering from some illness and expressing a hope that seeing his old friend will lift his spirits.
Fear
Inspired by the work of Edgar Allan Poe, House of Usher traces the downfall of the uber-wealthy Usher family and their corrupt drug company, Fortunato Pharmaceuticals. The story centers on Usher family patriarch and Fortunato CEO Roderick (Bruce Greenwood), who, as the show begins, calls up his longtime rival, assistant U.S. attorney C. All of the falls in the novel, the fall of Roderick, the fall of the bloodline of the Usher Family, and the fall of the house, occurs at the same time at the end of the story.
The couple took care of Eliza’s three children (including Poe) during her time of illness and eventual death. 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. ‘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.
In this statement, the narrator is more like pointing out towards something. By claiming the events in real life are scarier and horrifying that it sounds like the story, Poe tries to render his story more horrifying. Whatever the narrator is telling is actually happening, and the real happening was even worse than that. The mansion is carefully crafted to emphasize the atmosphere and mood of the story. The story becomes claustrophobic when the readers know that Roderick Usher has not left the house in ages. In fact, once entered, the narrator also does not leave the house until the story ends.
Roderick tells the narrator that he suffers from nerves and fear and that his senses are heightened. The narrator also notes that Roderick seems afraid of his own house. Roderick’s sister, Madeline, has taken ill with a mysterious sickness—perhaps catalepsy, the loss of control of one’s limbs—that the doctors cannot reverse. He listens to Roderick play the guitar and make up words for his songs, and he reads him stories, but he cannot lift Roderick’s spirit. Soon, Roderick posits his theory that the house itself is unhealthy, just as the narrator supposes at the beginning of the story.
The door opens and Madeline stands with blood on her robes, trembling. Shecries out and falls on her brother, and both die as she drags him to the floorwith her. The narrator flees the house with the storm still raging around him.He looks back to see the crack in the house widen and the tarn swallow theHouse of Usher. When Roderick speaks, he states that his illness is hereditary and withoutcure, which causes him to have highly reactive senses.
According to Roderick, Madeline suffers from a cataleptic disease that has gradually limited her mobility. As Roderick talks about his sister’s illness, the narrator sees her pass through a distant part of the house. With this foreboding introduction, we enter the interior through a Gothic portal with the narrator. With him we encounter Roderick Usher, who has changed drastically since last the narrator saw him.
Contemporary readers and critics interpreted the story as a somewhat sensationalized account of Poe’s supposed madness. (As a recluse, Poe often invited such accusations.) Later scholarship pursued alternative interpretations. Some scholars speculated that Poe may have attached special importance to the fact that Roderick and Madeline are twins, noting that Poe previously investigated the phenomenon of the double in “Morella” (1835) and “William Wilson” (1839).
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