As Roderick nears the conclusion of his story, which jumps back and forth between his early years working at Fortunato and the events that led up to each of his children's deaths, he finally arrives at the fateful night that changed everything, New Year's Eve of 1979. Moreover, there is a mixture of reality and fiction in the narration. Whatever the narrator is reading aloud to Roderick also manifests in reality. Over here, the narrator tries to explain that words are insufficient to describe reality. So one can say that the fictional words, read by the narrator to Roderick, are prophetic words that foreshadow or prophesize the upcoming events. These words are similar to the words of Roderick in which he prophesied his death early at the beginning of the story.
Literary Analysis
Long considered Edgar Allan Poe‘s masterpiece, “The Fall of the House of Usher” continues to intrigue new generations of readers. The story has a tantalizingly horrific appeal, and since its publication in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, scholars, critics, and general readers continue to grapple with the myriad possible reasons for the story’s hold on the human psyche. These explanations range from the pre-Freudian to the pre–Waste Land and pre-Kafka-cum-nihilist to the biographical and the cultural. Indeed, despite Poe’s distaste for Allegory, some critics view the house as a Metaphor for the human psyche (Strandberg 705).
In film and television
'The Fall of the House of Usher' Episode 6 Recap — What Is Madness? - Collider
'The Fall of the House of Usher' Episode 6 Recap — What Is Madness?.
Posted: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, a late 18th century novel which largely contributed in defining the gothic genre. He suffers from a depressing malaise characterized by strange behavior. For instance, it has sometimes been suggested that Roderick’s relationship with Madeline echoes Poe’s own relationship with his young wife (who was also his cousin), Virginia, who fell ill, as Madeline has. But Virginia did not fall ill until after Poe had written ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’.
Literary Theory and Criticism
An unnamed narrator approaches the house of Usher on a “dull, dark, and soundless day.” This house—the estate of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher—is gloomy and mysterious. 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.
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. Roderick wrote that he was feeling physically and emotionally ill, so the narrator is rushing to his assistance. The narrator mentions that the Usher family, though an ancient clan, has never flourished. Only one member of the Usher family has survived from generation to generation, thereby forming a direct line of descent without any outside branches.
Bibliography and Further Reading
We have a mysterious secret afflicting the house and eating away at its owner, the Gothic ‘castle’ (here, refigured as a mansion), premature burial (about which Poe wrote a whole other story), the mad owner of the house, and numerous other trappings of the Gothic novel. Poe condenses these into a short story and plays around with them, locating new psychological depths within these features. The story “The House of Usher is narrated in the first person with the peripheral narrator.
Because of the structure of the house, the characters cannot act or move freely in the house. Thus the house is assumed to be a monstrous character/structure in itself. It is a mastermind that controls the actions and fate of its residents. Though Poe gives the identifiable elements of the Gothic take, he contrasts the standard form of a tale with the plot that is sudden, inexplicable, and filled with unexpected interruptions. The story opens without providing complete information about the motives of the narrator’s arrival at the house of Usher. This ambiguity sets the plot of the story that vague the real and the fantastic.
Log in or Create account
However, an important point should be kept in mind that the story is narrated in retrospect; that is why the deliberate tone of the story is not compromised by the frantic mania of a terrified narrator. Madeline appears to be suffering from the typical problems of nineteen-century women. However, when Madeline comes out from the tomb, she possesses more power in the story and counteracts the weak, immobile, and nervous disposition of her brother. 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. The story deals with the family that is so remote and isolated from the world that they have developed their own non-existing barriers to interact with the world outside.
His eyes, he says, are "tortured by even a faint light," and only a few sounds from certain stringed instruments are endurable. When Poe began writing short stories, the short story was not generally regarded as serious literature. Poe’s writing helped elevate the genre from a position of critical neglect to an art form. “The Fall of the House of Usher” stands as one of Poe’s most popular and critically examined stories. Within a few hours of the narrator’s arrival, Roderick begins to share some of his theories about his family. Much to the narrator’s surprise, Roderick claims that the Usher mansion is sentient and that it exercises some degree of control over its inhabitants.
For example, the narrator realizes late in the game that Roderick and Madeline are twins, and this realization occurs as the two men prepare to entomb Madeline. The cramped and confined setting of the burial tomb metaphorically spreads to the features of the characters. Because the twins are so similar, they cannot develop as free individuals. Madeline is buried before she has actually died because her similarity to Roderick is like a coffin that holds her identity.
Furthermore, the house, despite holding together as a totality, shows signs of physical decay, like crumbling stones, dead trees, and mushrooms growing from the masonry. Madeline herself is dying of a wasting disease, showing physical deterioration. Perhaps the most obvious parallel lies in the initially shallow crack in the manor, representing the impending destruction of the house. Because the last of the Usher line are twins, that the crack divides the house in two signals their eternal separation in death. The song Roderick sings, “The Haunted Palace,” is an extended metaphor that compares the mind of a mad person to a haunted house or a palace under siege. This metaphor is representative of Roderick’s own mental deterioration.
The narrator of the story is nameless, suggesting that his only job is to narrate the story. Instead of focusing on the narrator, much of the interest of the readers are drawn towards the strange events that are being narrated. The title of the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” can be interpreted in various ways. The first interpretation can be of the actual fall of the house of Usher. The House of Usher is the place or mansion that the narrator visits and the main action of the story occur. The house of Usher falls at the end of the story into the pool of water situated before the house.
No comments:
Post a Comment