Romanticism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Romanticism is a movement in the arts of literature that originated in the late 18th century emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. An author can use Romanticism traits to evoke emotional and logical thoughts. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe uses certain characteristics to give an impression of Romanticism.

Poe’s characterization of Roderick Usher and imagery shows symbols of knowledge. For example, in one of Usher’s shared poems “The Haunted Palace”, a copious amount of Usher’s imagination gets incorporated into the poem: “The conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stones--in the order of their arrangement, as well as in

When Henry finally gets in the house he does not believe the things he hears or sees in the house: “He is predisposed to regard Roderick as mad and therefore to reject any explanation Roderick suggests”(Bailey 120). Henry is sceptical towards Lady Madeline when he is in the library with Usher, because her ghost-like skin sticks out like a sore thumb when she walks out of the room. Lady Madeline’s condition alarms Henry to the point where she seems like an actual ghost passing through the room. She suffers from a disease that cannot be cured, so she wanders around the house almost haunting it. Accordingly, Henry shows interest in the supernatural features of the house. Poe uses Usher’s character to attract Henry and keep him from leaving the house: “More important, the narrator, from the inciting incident on, has been led through the story’s events by Roderick’s imaginative creations: his letter, music, painting, poetry, his ‘fantastic yet impressive superstitions’”(Bieganowski 205). Henry compassion towards Roderick Usher does not falter when strange things happen in the house. In fact, when Usher and Henry are lounging in the library, Henry is not startled by the weird behavior of the ghost-like Madeline. Henry does not flee when strange things happen in the house; he embraces it. Likewise, Poe includes intellectual pride in his Romantic story. Roderick Usher wants to dispose of

When the narrator approaches the house, he realises,“For the sight of the House of Usher does not inspire awe and feelings of the sublime, but rather a shrinking dread and those dim apprehensions about impenetrable secrets, solemn catacombs, and morbid depths which Egyptian architecture was supposed to awaken in the Romantic mind”(Armand 36). The house has a human anatomy to it. The so called human-face of the house projects the insanity of Usher. Everything about Usher’s mental state reflects the vulgar landscaping around his house. The house is anachronistic, yet Usher still stays in the house. Correspondingly, Poe uses features of the house as Usher’s escape from reality. When Henry is welcomed into the house, he sits and talks with Roderick Usher in his library: “He has not been in the open air for a long time, implying that his life experience is almost exclusively fed by such a room”(Guerrero-Strachan 78). Some features about the house suggests that Usher tries to escape or isolate himself from civilization. The moat around his house disconnects himself from any type of civilization around him. Roderick Usher has also been reserved since he was a child, so he did not . Usher gets his life experiences from reading his books in his library, or completing his hobbies: reading books, writing poems, and