Edie’s View Essay, Research Paper
“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe The mind is a
complicated thing. Not many stories are able to portray this in such an
interesting manner as in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of
Usher”. The haunting story of a man and his sister, living in the old
family mansion. But as all should know, much symbolism can be found in
most of Poe’s works. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is no exception.
First of all, we have the symbolisme of Roderick Ushers mind and the House
of Usher coinciding. Both can be seem as one and the same. Residing in the
house are both Roderick and his sister, Madeline. What can be translated
from this is the age old hypothesis, the mind is divided in two parts: a
male or rational part, and a female or emotionnal part. In Usher’s mind,
we can see that he has problems expressing his emotions, represented as
Madeline’s unknown sickness. When she finally dies, Roderick puts her away
in an old dungeon t’ill she is to be buried. One could say that Usher is
trying to forget about his emotions by throwing that part of his mind into
the basement, or subconcious. He knows that if he can survive a fortnight
without this emotional part in him, he’ll be able to live without it for
the rest of his days. Another symbol is the one of the fortnight. A
fortnight is 14 days, or half a moon cycle. The full moon can be seen as
another symbol for the unconcious mind or even the dark side in us all.
Whereas a new moon represents the concious or good side in us all.
Madeline was locked away just at the beginning of the full moons half
cycle. In other words, Roderick knew that this was the worst time for his
sister to die, she could easily comeback, using the moons dark power.
Unfourtunatly, on the night of the full moon, or the wost night of turmoil
for Usher’s mind, Roderick’s sister comes back from the dead to kill him.
In other words, the one thing he wanted to get rid of comes back and puts
an end to his already fragile mind. Thia is why The House of Usher
collapses and falls to ruins into the swampy pool in front of it.
Basically, Usher’s mind collapses right down the middle, just where the
male and female parts of the mind are seperated. Along with the swampy
pool, the exterior of the house also plays a symbolic role in this story.
The land around the house has a lack of colour and healthy vegetation.
This can be said to represent Usher’s surroundings. They are dark, plagued
and hopeless. Perhaps these surroundings are the source of his depression,
or perhaps only a part of it. From afar, the house seems stable. Quite in
good shape in fact, but upon closer inspection, it can be seen that the
house’s innards are rotten. The house, along with Usher’s mind, are about
to crumble. Another resemblance between Roderick and his house is how the
hair on his forhead seems to match the web work of eaves along the houses
facade. These eaves, acting as a parasite, start from the top of the house
and make there way down. In other words, this parasite, plaguing Usher’s
mind, started in his concious mind and worked it’s way into his unconcious
mind. Roderick’s thin pale lips can represent the thin line of life
keeping him in check. His pale and cadaverous features resemble the dark
and cold look of the house. All these images show us that Usher is not
long for this world. Near the end of the work, the narrator decides to
tell Roderick a story to calm his soul and give him stregnth. During this
time, Roderick is a nervous, paranoid wreck. He keeps saying that his
sister will come back. The book read by our narrator to Roderick tells the
story of a knight on his way to see a magician of some sort. In his place,
he finds a dragon he must slay. Once the dragon is down, our heros prize,
a wonderfull sheild, falls to the ground instead of in the heros hands. In
other words, the hero was to face his fear but failed in doing so
correctly. That is why his prize, perhaps Usher’s sane mind, falls to the
floor. This symbolism is also played in the “real world”. The exact
momment where the shield falls to the floor, a knock is heard on the
chambers door. Roderick goes to answer it and uppon opening the door,
Madeline is seen, blood all over her, lunging towards him. We can see then
why he says she was buried alive. Ones capacity to express emotion,
however bad it may be, is never truly dead, only forever sick. “The Fall
of the House of Usher”. A good story by itself. An even better story if
analysed correctly. The story of a man loosing his mind has rarely been
presented so imaginatively. But this was only from one point of view. What
other meanings can be pulled from this story? Perhaps it is the inner mind
of a schitzophrenic, or even a legend told to scare little boys from
hurting there sisters. They may just come back! Either way, This work is
still worth reading.
Bibliography
The Fall of The House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe Amazon.com (lotsa
potential ideas. Just put a bunch of titles…)