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Edgar Allan Poe Mental Illness Essay

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Gothic Literature as a genre is not particularly new, for it has been around since the mid-1700s and continues to make its mark on present day media. Gothic Literature compose of several topics, such as but not limited to mental illness, gothic elements, arabesque storytelling, and narration/point of view. Several short stories and novels include these topics and themes, but most fail to be quintessential representatives of this genre. Only a few authors throughout modern history manage to become key representatives of this genre. One of the greatest examples of this feat of genre representation is the late Edgar Allan Poe. Throughout his decorative and short career, his plethora of short stories manage to become keystones of the gothic literature …show more content…

In “The Fall of The House of Usher”, the unnamed narrator receives a letter from his distant friend, Usher who has fallen to an unknown bodily illness. This unknown illness affects his friend both physically ,but more importantly, mentally which ultimately drives Usher mad throughout the short story. According to several critics during and after Edgar Allan Poe’s time, it is a common theory that the author receives many of his mind disorder references from his draw towards medical studies. However, Edgar Allan Poe reveals himself that many of his references are taken from his interest of psychological fiction. His knowledge of psychological fiction and medical studies is openly displayed in “The Fall of The House of Usher” as well as several other literary works. according to Mere Household Events: The metaphysics of Mania, Roderick Usher’s mental disorder shares the same characteristics of someone suffering from monomania. Despite Usher’s mental state, the narrator himself is possibly also a victim of some of mental illness. According to Charles E. May’s Abnormality and the confusion of Life and Death, controversial yet popular critic of the short story is that either Usher or the unnamed narrator is suffering from madness. Lastly. Edgar Allen Poe also heavily implies that both Roderick and Madeline are having an ancestral relationship with one another. Though incest itself is not defined as a mental disorder, the plethora of reasons for why incest occurs can correlate with other mental

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Edgar Allan Poe used fear to attract his readers into his gothic world. Poe realized that fear intrigues as well as frightens his readers. In The Fall of the House of Usher, The story begins with Roderick Usher already suffering from a severe mental illness, which steadily grows worse as the tale progresses. Roderick dreads the unknowable; he fears precisely what cannot be rationally feared. He fears for no apparent reason.

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His sister is his only heir, and his only chance to keep the family from dying out. His sister contracts a disease, thus causing Usher to become mad, as the story progresses slowly. Throughout the story, Edgar Allen Poe uses many forms of literary elements, such as images and descriptive words, to frighten the reader. A paradigm of this imagery is exhibited in paragraph 11 when Roderick Usher explains his mental illness to the narrator, and he confesses he’s not afraid of danger, “except in its absolute effect–in terror”, and how he has begun to question whether or not he should, “abandon life and reason together” because of his, “struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR. "

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1020 Words | 5 Pages

Roderick Usher was clearly not in his right mind, and the cause of this can be attributed to his illness and age. The narrator had known Roderick as a nice and normal guy in his youth, but being isolated with his illness had driven the man to

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771 Words | 4 Pages

Gothic fiction is a genre of horror and is characterised by themes of death, darkness and evil. Gothic fiction has been around for a very long time and is still popular today. The tell-tale heart, Don 't ask jack and The sandman are all good examples of gothic fiction. The purpose of gothic fiction is to scare the readers and make them interested. The tell tale heart is about a man who goes insane and kills his roommate because his eye looks like a vultures.

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673 Words | 3 Pages

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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794 Words | 4 Pages

Gothic novels are an English subgenre of horror and have fictional aspects. They emphasize and explore the themes of terror and mystery, utilizing female protagonists who typically are or become insane. Gothic novels were written and at their popularity peak in the 18th century. Stereotypically set in medieval times with an atmosphere of mystery, terror and death, they have features of fantasy ranging from ghosts to vampires. Alice Munro and Susan Hill both infuse gothic elements into their pieces, giving them an eerie and sinister ambience through various literary techniques; similes, metaphors, personification.

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419 Words | 2 Pages

Modern artists today generally use images of physical and mental illness in literature. In The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, both short stories show the usage of illness, madness, and fear. The narrators in both stories try to convince the readers that the characters are physically and mentally ill. Edgar Allen Poe creates these vivid characters which successfully assist the building of plot and ideas. Poe demonstrates how a person’s inner turmoil and terror can lead to insanity through illustrative language.

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605 Words | 3 Pages

Gothic Literature is a kind of literature that contains abnormal locations, dramatic storylines, and death. The elements that Gothic Literature has are villains, the setting, and gloomy mood. For example, a story that is Gothic Literature would be The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. This story can be considered a part of Gothic literature because it has that sense of a villain in the story and also that recurring symbolism of death The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, is part of Gothic Literature using a bleak setting. The reasoning of this is the environment of the story is depicted

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678 Words | 3 Pages

Gothic literature is acknowledged as one of genre in literature. Horace Walpole creates Gothic genre at late 18th and early 19th centuries. (Hume, 282) It is basically a story that combines both horror and romance together. Typically, it follows a plot of suspense, mystery and includes supernatural events.

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459 Words | 2 Pages

Gothic literature is a style of literature that takes place in the past, most of the time it has someone who dies and it has a creepy vibe/tone behind it . Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” is a good example of Gothic literature because it shows how a man goes to visit an old friend and see how his friend and his friends twin sister die. “The whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day. ”(13)

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1500 Words | 6 Pages

Roderick and Madeline Usher have been riddled with many illnesses as a result of the many generations hailing from a “direct line of descent” (Poe 196). The twins are the last members of their family and are on the edge of extinction. It can be possible that the Usher’s had turned their backs on God and “betrayed the Holy Ghost in themselves” (The Fall of the House of Usher 167). As the last of the Usher House, Madeline and Roderick symbolize the end of “an Enlightenment tradition still standing but about to collapse” (The Fall of the House of Usher 167).

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1029 Words | 5 Pages

Gothic Literature is a genre that was popular between 18th to 19th centuries in North Germany. It is always being associated with Dark Romanticism which the emphasize was more on nature, terror and death, horror and many more. It involves dark and gloomy setting and also unexplainable things that are beyond human senses and reason such as ghosts and monsters. The main characters, on the other hand, are always ineffectual which they do not give much effect on the story plot. This can be seen through Washington Irving’s “Rip van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” which can be considered as American gothic work in terms of its description of setting, the involvement of supernatural element in the story and also the characteristics of the main character.

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1001 Words | 5 Pages

Furthermore, his belief was focused that one needs to participate in negative emotions to relieve the pain that he or she feels. Edgar Allan Poe creates a character in desperate need of aid in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” utilizing an aspect of art: music, to try and relieve Roderick of the pain he is dealing with a the solution to his suffering, but does not provide permanent relief. Art in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is structured to have Roderick arouse feelings of cheerfulness as he listens to music. For instance, his mental state was abnormal based on the narrator 's initial description, “He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable...could wear only garments of certain texture... flowers were oppressive...tortured by a faint light...and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror” (Poe 164).

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942 Words | 4 Pages

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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760 Words | 4 Pages

Research Paper Is Detective fiction exciting? Does Gothic fiction sound interesting? An American author named Edgar Allan Poe shaped and molded those two genres. In fact, Poe fathered the Detective genre, and many modern authors still utilize his writing style. His terrifying works of Gothic fiction affected the modern “realm of horror” from novels to movies, traces of Poe’s style still lurk about.

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