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The Fall Of The House Of Usher Essay

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In the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator revisits his old childhood friend, Roderick Usher, after receiving a peculiar letter from him. The narrator later discovers that Roderick comes from a curse-stricken family that has suffered for generations. As the story progresses, the reader is able to witness the toll this family curse takes on Usher, the paranoia it brought, and his eventual mental and physical decline as a result of the heavy burdens. Through Poe’s usage of symbolism, imagery, and personification, he furthers his theme of the unconscious mind and the effects of isolation and fear on the human mind. A major symbol that Poe consistently alludes back to in the piece is the physical condition …show more content…

The small lake only helped to further seclude the Ushers from the rest of society. Poe’s illustration of a makeshift moat emphasizes how guarded and closed off the Ushers truly are; supporting the idea that they’re confined in a slowly decaying mansion. In making little to no effort in connecting with the outside world, Roderick has subconsciously developed a defense mechanism through his isolation. This tactic only brings harm to Usher; enabling the deterioration of his psychological condition and house and allowing him to dive deeper into the bottomless abyss of his mind. In illustrating the effects of fright and Roderick’s defense mechanisms, Poe reinforces his message of the dangers of isolation as a result of uneasiness and intrusive thoughts. However, despite Roderick’s secluded lifestyle being one of the many causes of his poor health, it was a common and reasonable path for troubled people of the 1930s. Mental facilities of this time were known to be brutal, unethical, and inhumane. It was common for patients to be viewed as rabid animals, amounting to nothing more than guinea pigs for their scientific …show more content…

His lack of care and indifference towards life was ultimately reflected in the state of his family home. Unfortunately, Roderick’s biggest fears and reasoning behind his sleepless nights, self-destructive behavior, and paranoia got the best of him. He allowed for the gradual hand-off and takeover process of his life as a whole. The Usher family saw its end, its last breath, once his uneasiness fully consumed him. Poe illustrates a bitter ending through his usage of imagery; providing the reader with the full perspective of the somber causes and effects of isolation and anxiety. Poe treats personification and symbolism as a medium, or means of conveying his ultimate message. He wishes for the reader to truly see the limitless boundaries of the unconscious mind; our minds possess an immeasurable amount of power beyond belief. It has the ability to unleash itself in our living, conscious reality, and Poe hopes for his audience to be aware of the strength within them and use it wisely. In exhibiting Phan 5 our inner force, Poe also exposes the vulnerability of the human psyche. He demonstrates how these abilities occur on a two-way road. Just as the mind has the power to shape one’s

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442 Words | 2 Pages

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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722 Words | 3 Pages

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

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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934 Words | 4 Pages

When the narrator first was reconnected with Rodrick, they were talking and the narrator learned something disturbing about the Usher family. “The entire family lay in the direct line of descent” (Poe). Showing the family dynamic and how it was forced upon the Usher twins since their whole family had done it before. As the narrator is feeling like he is going insane he meets with Rodrick for the last time learning what is truly happening in the house. “The rendering of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault!”

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944 Words | 4 Pages

In Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher,”

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886 Words | 4 Pages

He also tries to convince the reader not to let fear overcome him. The use of character provides action and suspense in the story through the characters' dialogue and actions. Roderick, who is a hypochondriac, is very depressed. "I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.” This quote is showing, “FEAR” emphasizes that it’s the primary feeling Poe is attempting to evoke in this story.

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406 Words | 2 Pages

Words like “dull” and “oppressive” along with phrases like “soundless day in the autumn of year,...” (Poe, line 1) help prevail the darkness lingering outside the house of Usher as if all the evils of the world would be spent on one final blow on the Usher family. As the story progresses however, both Usher and the narrator end up going crazy as the gloomy weather and the reawakening of Usher’s twin sister both contribute to the evils destroying the Usher family.

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189 Words | 1 Pages

In Edgar Allan Poe's short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and in Julio Cortázar's short story, “House Taken Over”, both stories use very similar characters to show the terrible effects of loneliness and fear. Poe uses dramatic language and tormented characters to build suspense, while Cortázar uses simplistic language to emphasize how ridiculous fear can be. Poe’s character, Roderick Usher, “[suffers]...from a morbid acuteness of [his] senses” (Poe 10). The author uses negative connotations to describe his characters ailment, but he makes it unclear as to what Usher suffers from, all to create anticipation for the readers. Cortázar does not go into depth describing his characters, but the behavior they portray keeps the audience intrigued.

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1117 Words | 5 Pages

Poe uses personification, repetition, and symbolization in the

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1669 Words | 7 Pages

“ 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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991 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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1500 Words | 6 Pages

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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781 Words | 4 Pages

This essential theme is presented directly. This is the method that Poe chose to achieve his unity of effect. But Poe wants to achieve an effect a total, unified effect in order to show the close proximity of the revelry of life and the masquerade to the inevitability of death itself. Poe's story possesses no real characters. The greatness of the story lies in his use of an age-old theme the inevitability of death and in the way that Poe creates and maintains a total unity of effect, he brings us into the horror of the story.

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910 Words | 4 Pages

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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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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