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Analysis Of The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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The human body is physiologically made up of primarily three qualities. People paint each one in their own way; The conscious mind holds its walls up towards reality and rational occurances, while behind that layer is the unconscious mind that pushes the boundaries of our reality --perhaps even supernatural beings -- and both of these are tied to the soul: the purity and core existence for homosapians. Thus, this idea gets expanded on--even crosses the line--during the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. During the story, the narrator goes to visit his ill friend Roderick Usher in his home and while there, he experiences rather bizarre situations that is merely brushed away until the very arch at the end of the story. This story brings along the imagination, and those qualities of the conscious …show more content…

Rationality held the narrator like a bubble above the unanswering, confusing, empty pit of the House of Usher. However, through the whole story it was deteriorating quickly; sending him closer and closer to the questions left unanswered. The final hole in his bubble was a true sense of reality, his final logical breath consisted of, “It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions“ (324). However irrational the thought seems, the truth that lays behind admitting to the visions in front of the author was much more to him than the ignorance that couldn’t be ignored. The barriers had been crumbling the moment his eyes laid upon the House of Usher, and the solitude of the first unconscious step the narrator has made is when Usher’s sister, who was supposed to be dead, appears in the door on a stormy night. She shows herself to her brother, but the narrators eyes have gone through his bubble, and from that point the last resolve the narrator had

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Edgar Allen Poe is considered to be one of the leading writers of the Gothic Romantic period of literature. One of Poe’s famous short stories, The Fall of the House of Usher, creates a dark and sorrowful atmosphere, with a deep story of connection between brother and sister intertwined within. Poe conveys this atmosphere through powerful and elaborate use of diction, to tie into the overarching theme of tradition. Poe is renowned throughout history for his beautiful and elaborate use of diction and symbolism. He uses copious amounts of description to conjure up vivid scenes in the reader’s mind.

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In “The Fall of the House of Usher” Rodrick, although rational at the start, by slow degrees becomes insane about his house, and about his dead wife/ sister. By the end of the tale he is very deranged, and mentally disconnected. The tale thus represents the fall of reason, the inability of the rational mind to make sense of a chaotic universe. At the beginning one can tell that Roderick has unusual mental properties.

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Poe implements the same want to put one in the mind of fear. In his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poes

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When the narrator sees Usher for the first time in years, he “gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!”. From the moment Roderick is introduced, he is described with ominous tones. Although the reader has no idea what Usher had looked like before his illness, the thoughts of the narrator invoke an unsure and suspenseful mood. After spending more time with him, the narrator had also come to learn that “He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth—in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated—an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.”.

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Imagery in Decay Topic: How Poe uses Imagery to further the plot in The Fall of the House of Usher Tentative thesis: Through the use of imagery Edgar Allan Poe shows a decrepit, dying family; by portraying the decay of both the house and those who reside in it Poe sets up the final fate of the two main characters in his short story. Topic sentence 1: Throughout the short story Poe uses the landscape and the very trees to give the house a supernatural life and induce horror in the reader.

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The crack in the house and the dead trees imply that the house and its surroundings are not sturdy or promising. These elements indicate that a positive outcome is not expected. The thunder,strange light, and mist create a spooky feeling for the reader. In "The Fall of the house of Usher," Edgar Allan Poe creates suspense and fear in the reader. He also tries to convince the reader not to let fear overcome him.

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The narrator describes the house of having “vacant eye-like windows-upon a few rank sedges-and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees-...” (Poe, line 9) and “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart-...” (Poe, line 12) the “sickening of the heart” and “vacant eye-like windows” are examples of figurative language that foreshadows the misinterpreted death of Usher’s twin sister Madaline as they placed her in the the cellar of the house for later examination by physicians to find what disease she had come down

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In paragraph five of Poe’s story, as the narrator takes in the sight of the house, he realizes that their was a large crack from the top of the front roof, all the way down “in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters. ”(Poe,5) The narrator has arrived at the house and can not believe how daunting the house looks and it makes him wonder how bad-off his friend actually might be. This is a use of symbolism because later on in the story we are shown how Roderick Usher acts and how poor his health actually is. The owner of the house, Roderick, has a very strong illness of schizophrenia which makes him lose his mind; the cracks in the house resemble the “cracks” in Usher’s mind.

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Deep within every person there is a sense of fear that terrifies them for life. In Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Fall of the house of Usher”, the narrator enters the home of a lifelong friend, Usher, who has fallen to the fear he has held within him. Usher’s twin sister, Madeline, has Usher on edge thinking that she is dead. When they bury her, she comes back to life and takes him away to die with him. They are the last two of the family of Ushers.

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In “Fall Of House Of Usher” the brother is revealed as mentally ill and kills the sister. “ Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!” ( Poe 30). However, in “ House Taken Over” the brother ends up saving the sister and they disappear.

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“ The Fall of the House of Usher “ by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story about a man named Roderick Usher who initiates some events such as evoking his friend The Narrator as a protagonist to the dreadful mansion. The images such as the house and gothic ambience are used to reinforce the idea of giving the mystery to the reader. Edgar Allan Poe uses gothic elements to show how they affect the atmosphere and the characters. In the beginning , the gothic atmosphere of the house is indicated with terrifying images such as “ dull, dark and soundless ” that the feeling of horror vaccinated into reader by the thoughts of the narrator.

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The trace has, properly speaking, no place, for effacement belongs to the very structure of the trace. (Derrida 156) In existing, trace becomes the mechanism by which it endures effacement; for all things which exist in the present automatically display traces of absent signifiers which may never exist, in their totality, in the present. Riddled with Derrida’s notion of trace, “The Fall of the House of Usher” most evidently presents trace through the reverberations of genetic trace. Prior to the narrator’s visitation of the Usher estate, he describes the means by which the Usher family furthers its lineage: I had learned . . .

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Throughout “The Fall of the House of Usher,” metaphor and symbolism are heavily relied upon to express the extent of the madness that resides within the Usher House. In the short story, Poe creates a symbolic parallel between the art and stories that are seen and told. It can be implied, from a painting, in the Usher house, that Lady Madeline Usher is still alive. The reader can also imply that there is a hidden tunnel or room under the entirety of the house. “The Mad Trist” indirectly tells the reader of Lady Madeline’s escape from the tomb she had been placed in.

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In “The Fall of the House of Usher” the tone gives off an eerie and bizarre feeling. This is similar to many of Poe’s other short stories but this piece the most. The tone is gloomy compared to “The Black Cat” that Poe has also written. The author starts off the story with immense details of the setting. The readers get a dark vibe from these details.

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In the “Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick Usher prematurely buries his sister, Madeline Usher, because he thinks she has died from an unknown illness. Poe describes the burial as, “We replaced and screwed down the lid, and having secured the door of iron, made out the way with the toll…” (Poe 425). When Roderick bolted the iron lid upon his sister’s coffin, all trust that had previously been built between the two had been broken. In Poe’s life, after the burial of his wife and mother, he felt like he could never trust anyone as well.

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