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Symbolism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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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. “A Haunted Place” shows Roderick Usher falling from sanity as he plays the lute beautifully, a reflection of well being, and harshly, a reflection of madness. The stories that Poe includes in the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, are not …show more content…

Roderick and Madeline Usher have been riddled with many illnesses as a result of the many generations hailing from a “direct line of descent” (Poe 196). The twins are the last members of their family and are on the edge of extinction. It can be possible that the Usher’s had turned their backs on God and “betrayed the Holy Ghost in themselves” (The Fall of the House of Usher 167). As the last of the Usher House, Madeline and Roderick symbolize the end of “an Enlightenment tradition still standing but about to collapse” (The Fall of the House of Usher 167). The physical house reflects the end of the Usher bloodline as it still stands on the edge of ruin, away from civilization. While the house itself is splitting due to the fissure that is tearing it apart, the twins are being torn apart by the disease that will soon take them. Ultimately, the house does fall to the “black and lurid tarn” (Poe 196) and the twins return to the ground having met the demise that they had been molded to by “preternatural interconnectedness” (Timmerman

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“And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things before. When people are dancing and having fun they don’t stop because a clock rang; this shows that there is something dark like death on the guests mind. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the narrator’s thoughts set a dark mood. “...I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with a grim phantasm, FEAR.”

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

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The crack in the house and the dead trees imply that the house and its surroundings are not sturdy or promising. These elements indicate that a positive outcome is not expected. The thunder,strange light, and mist create a spooky feeling for the reader. In "The Fall of the house of Usher," Edgar Allan Poe creates suspense and fear in the reader. He also tries to convince the reader not to let fear overcome him.

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The narrator describes the house of having “vacant eye-like windows-upon a few rank sedges-and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees-...” (Poe, line 9) and “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart-...” (Poe, line 12) the “sickening of the heart” and “vacant eye-like windows” are examples of figurative language that foreshadows the misinterpreted death of Usher’s twin sister Madaline as they placed her in the the cellar of the house for later examination by physicians to find what disease she had come down

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In his short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allen Poe uses foreshadowing to show how Roderick is sad to let go of Madeline. A quote showing this is: The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of her youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house (Poe 403).

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Deep within every person there is a sense of fear that terrifies them for life. In Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Fall of the house of Usher”, the narrator enters the home of a lifelong friend, Usher, who has fallen to the fear he has held within him. Usher’s twin sister, Madeline, has Usher on edge thinking that she is dead. When they bury her, she comes back to life and takes him away to die with him. They are the last two of the family of Ushers.

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Modern artists today generally use images of physical and mental illness in literature. In The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, both short stories show the usage of illness, madness, and fear. The narrators in both stories try to convince the readers that the characters are physically and mentally ill. Edgar Allen Poe creates these vivid characters which successfully assist the building of plot and ideas. Poe demonstrates how a person’s inner turmoil and terror can lead to insanity through illustrative language.

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Did they die? The stories are very similar in writing style but the settings change as the story goes on. In Poe’s story “ The fall of the House of Usher” the brother Roderick Usher is not well, he is suffering of a mental disorder Roderick is tormented by his own fear and he kills his sister Madeline “ There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of emaciated frame” (Poe 30).

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“ 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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that the stem of the Usher race . . . had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. (Poe 2) Despite the incestual means of their conception occurring in the past, resulting genetic defects oppress the Usher siblings Madeline and Roderick—both physically and mentally—well into the future. Although the narrator provides no physical description of Madeline Usher prior to her entombment, of her brother Roderick he reports deformed features in line with those of products of

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Sometimes being alone can be beneficial for some in small doses, however constant loneliness can annihilate a person. Edgar Allen Poe explores how isolation strengthens internal fear which leads to the metal break through “The Fall of the house of Usher.” The narrator's experiences are explained in great detail along with Poe dropping hints at what is to come throughout the story. He explains the extreme isolation of the Usher’s in order to convey the impact has on the body and mind. Poe uses the reader’s five senses and multiple connections in the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” to manifest how social confinement bolsters internal fear which leads to the psychological break down on a person.

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Furthermore, his belief was focused that one needs to participate in negative emotions to relieve the pain that he or she feels. Edgar Allan Poe creates a character in desperate need of aid in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” utilizing an aspect of art: music, to try and relieve Roderick of the pain he is dealing with a the solution to his suffering, but does not provide permanent relief. Art in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is structured to have Roderick arouse feelings of cheerfulness as he listens to music. For instance, his mental state was abnormal based on the narrator 's initial description, “He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable...could wear only garments of certain texture... flowers were oppressive...tortured by a faint light...and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror” (Poe 164).

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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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The fall of the house of usher uses a gothic tone throughout the story, in this case we can see different tones. Mood is the emotion or feeling produced by the piece. Throughout the story we see a dark, mysterious and somber mood. For example when the narrator said “I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound… I felt if creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions”. He created a creepy mood and a tone where you start to see that Roderick is going crazy, because he has started to hear and see things that are not

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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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