Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher Analysis

"The Fall of the House of Usher" By: Edgar Allan Poe Presentation Lecture By: Dr. Shubham Singh

The Background Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1809. The Fall of the House of Usher , is a supernatural horror story by Edgar Allan Poe, published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in 1839. The Fall of the House of Usher possesses the typical features of a Gothic tale: a haunted house, dull and bleak landscape, mysterious sickness, and doubled personality.

Edgar Poe as a Short Story Writer Poe was an American writer, considered to be a part of the Romantic Movement, particularly, Dark Romanticism. As a master storyteller of the Gothic tales, Poe became known for his dark, macabre tales of horror, and is even referred to as the father of Gothic fiction, for the contributions he made. Although his writings were well received, Poe struggled financially and was also plagued with "bouts of depression and madness."

The Story An unnamed narrator approaches the house of Usher on a dull, dark, and soundless day. This house the estate of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher is gloomy and mysterious. The narrator observes that the house seems to have absorbed an evil and diseased atmosphere from the decaying trees and murky ponds around it. The inside of the house just as spooky as the outside. He makes his way through the long passages to the room where Roderick is waiting. Roderick tells the narrator that he suffers from nerves and fear and that his senses are heightened. Roderick s sister, Madeline, has taken ill with a mysterious sickness perhaps catalepsy, the loss of control of one s limbs that the doctors cannot reverse. The narrator tries to lift his mood by several entertaining activities, but fails. Madeline soon dies, and Roderick decides to bury her temporarily in the tombs below the house.

The Climax On a particular troubled night, the narrator reads Mad Trist by Sir Launcelot Canning, a medieval romance to Roderick. As he reads, he hears noises that correspond to the descriptions in the story. Roderick reveals that he has been hearing these sounds for days, and believes that they have buried Madeline alive and that she is trying to escape. He yells that she is standing behind the door. The wind blows open the door to show Madeline standing in white robes bloodied from her struggle. She attacks Roderick as life escapes her, and he dies of fear. The narrator flees the house in horror and trepidation. As he escapes, the entire house cracks along the break in the frame and crumbles to the ground.

Analysis of the Gothic Elements The horror in the story comes from its vague setting and uncertainty. We cannot say for sure where in the world or exactly when the story takes place. We are alone with the narrator in this haunted space, and neither we nor the -narrator know why. The story begins without complete explanation of the narrator s motives for arriving at the house of Usher, and this ambiguity sets a plot that continually confuses the real and the fantastic. Poe creates a sensation of claustrophobia in this story. The narrator is mysteriously trapped in the situation, and he cannot escape until the house of Usher collapses completely.

Analysis of the Gothic Elements Characters cannot move and act freely in the house because of its structure, so it assumes a monstrous character of its own the Gothic mastermind that controls their fate. Poe employs the word house metaphorically, but he also describes a real house. Not only does the narrator get trapped inside the mansion, but we learn also that this confinement describes the biological fate of the Usher family. The house itself becomes a terrifying character. Often in the gothic story, the characters seem to possess some sort of psychic communication that usually occurs between a living person and a "living" corpse. We see this kind of communication between Roderick Usher and his twin sister that constantly troubles his mind ever since she is presumed dead and buried. One of the stock elements of the gothic story concerns the possibility of returning to life after one is dead and, moreover, inhabiting one's own corpse. This is what happens with the return of the living corpse of Madeleine.

Gothic Fiction The Gothic Romantic Movement combined elements of horror and romance. The Romantics focused on awe, trepidation, and terror and the Gothics focused on the mysterious, such as hidden passageways, ghosts, screams, and magic. So when the two are combined, which is Poe s unique contribution, a much more haunting and creepy fiction is produced. This style of fiction began in the mid 1700s with a story titled, The Castle of Otranto (in 1764), by Horace Walpole. This story was about a doomed family and is filled with death, desire, and intrigue. The term Gothic actually originated as a term belittling the architecture and art of the period, which was dark, decaying, and dismal. In this sense too, it could be applied to the title story. The Fall of the House of Usher, is a great example of the use of nature and setting as a fearful element. He even manipulated and challenged the conventions of gothic fiction and horror.

Gothic Fiction : Features While Poe is undoubtedly the best known of the Gothic authors, there are several other significant names such as Matthew Gregory Lewis, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Bram Stoker, and the Bront sisters, among others. Gothic fiction writers choose the physical location of a scene which directly contributes to the feeling of fear and uneasiness.Authors often used settings like dark forests, unnerving mountain regions, ominous climatic conditions, and threatening storms. Castles, romanticized in the Medieval period, played a large role in early Gothic writings. Much of Gothic literature s allure comes from the genre s suggestion of supernatural or inexplicable events, such as inanimate objects coming to life, ghosts, and spirits.

Gothic Fiction : Features Often, Gothic writers use melodrama or high emotion to convey a thought. This exaggerated, impassioned language helps convey the panic and terror inherent in many characters. This is the state Roderick Usher is trapped in throughout the story. Nightmares serve as a particularly important omen within Gothic literature. Nightmares have an ancient association with the act of foretelling and were used to exacerbate the haunting aspects of a novel s plot. The nightmares turn literal in The Fall of the House Usher and the distinction between reality and fiction is blurred. The protagonist takes the form of the anti-hero, a flawed protagonist with a typical unhealthy bent of the mind that causes him to act unreasonably. This mental distress causes Roderick Usher to bury his twin sister alive possibly owing to the exhaustion he experienced trying to cater to her. He lost his sanity in tending to the strange illness of his sister.