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Superego In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

852 Words4 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe’s well known story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is an eerie story with a gothic setting and the nameless narrator for which he is known for. It starts out with the narrator going to the house of a sick friend named Roderick Usher. Upon making his appearance, he goes in to find Usher pale and lifeless as he has a mental disorder. His sister Madeline also has an illness but of a physical nature. When she dies Usher along with the narrator bury her under the house. A week later they hear noises. Turns out they buried Madeleine alive. Ultimately, she makes her last debut bloodied while she as well as Usher die, the narrator flees from that broken down house which collapses. While Poe achieves many goals with this story, the …show more content…

Right from the start of the story the way he drops everything to go to his friend as “his desire to see me as his best, and indeed his only personal friend” (Poe,2). It displays that he has the heart to take into account how lonely Rodrick is and lessen it, never mind the fact they have not seen each other in decades. This is confirmed when the narrator puts aside his feeling saying “I did not feel at liberty to dispute”(9) as he helps Rodreick in burying his sister, for a person with a superego mental state is more supportive even if that means shoving their feelings down. It is shown yet again by the way he attempts to calm the fear in Rodrick at night stating “ you must not you shall not behold this. These appearances, which bewilder you are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon” (12). The narrator at this point is trying to keep him sane, a common occurrence with Poe’s stories. In contrast, the other characters are more extreme starting with Madeline, who is id to the fullest …show more content…

Although Madeline only appears in the story three times there are subtle hints as to where she lies on the spectrum. The first clue is the narrator’s only look at her as she “passed slowly through the remote portion of the apartment” (6). One can say this because if someone is that close to death they would not be walking around. This is only asserted when she supposedly dies, but there is a “faint blush upon the bosom and the face” (10). She could have made a sign or movement that she is alive, but she did not probably because she wanted her brother to feel the pain of losing her making Madeline that much more selfish. Even in the end she takes her brother down with her as she “fell heavily upon the person of her brother” (15). It is almost like if she cannot live anymore he can not either because of the purity of the family name which screams narcissistic. To balance this out Rodrick represents the ego of a

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