Fall Of Usher

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).

(Poe 681) This is a contributing factor to the mental illness that he claims to have and can be linked to his reasoning behind burying his sister where she could not be used for experimentation by the local doctors. The last influence on Mr. Usher is the environment in which he lives. “…the decaying House mirroring Usher’s mind…”

Whilst Tess possesses a vulnerability that is exploited, Esther is cast out from society because of her mental disorder. A major setback for Esther’s development was the societal beliefs and attitudes surrounding mental health and its treatment, something Plath includes to highlight her own struggles with depression. This alienation manufactured her beliefs that ‘wherever I sat -- on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok -- I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.’ Plath’s allusion casts Esther in the hellish realm of her own mind, a ‘glass bell jar’, forced to watch the world revolve around her when she needs their acceptance the most. The fragmented structure we see in this line through

From the perspective of a modern reader, I don’t understand how Isaac never fought with Abraham on mount Adonai-yireh. His acceptance of his role as a sacrificial offering seems fake. In the passage there is no mentioning of Isaac trying to negotiate for his freedom or attempting to escape Abraham. From my experience, when I was about to get a spanking for being bad I tried to hide. Survival is an instinct.

Mortality is the orphaned offspring of human existence. Haunting one’s daily actions, it lurks in the shadows, the close calls, and in one other unexpected place- one’s body. In her memoir, Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, reporter Susannah Cahalan recounts her body’s betrayal and its aftermath, painting a devastating and hopeful portrait of her condition. Enthralling and terrifying, Susannah’s report of her survival is a must-read. Quite novel in its subject matter, Brain on Fire:

His father Unoka was quoted “in his day was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow”. Basically saying he didn’t care about his life, so in what possible way could he have cared for Okonkwo’s. And his wife Ekwefi he didn’t technically shoot. He didn’t kill so there might have been sympathy there because she was completely defenseless and didn’t die so you can tell he intentionally didn’t kill her.

We are introduced to Bartleby in medias res, which demonstrates this lack of communication; like entering into the middle of a conversation without orientation, we do not get a backstory of why is working at the law firm or where he came from. Bartleby is described throughout the text as a ghost or a cadaver, spectral and grey. Communication is fading as the walls are erected. Bartleby’s famous line, “I would prefer not to” is one example of this concept. He simply states that he would prefer not to do whatever is being asked of him, giving no explanation or expansion, which baffles the narrator.

‘At least spare me those youthful horrors’” (52). Moreau here, is so far gone after all of his years of vivisection, both on and off the island. Moreau, even in England, has never had any supervision regarding his experiments due to the unknowing English Parliament. Because of the fact that Moreau has not had that watchful eye trained on him his urges have always run free and the result of that is what the readers see on the island with the Beast People and the “House of Pain”. When someone used to the weight of societal norms confronts Moreau he responds with “‘But you see I am differently constituted.

In the novel, The Stranger, by Albert Camus centers his theme around existentialism. Existentialism is how people determine their own path within their actions. Meursault, the main character in The Stranger believes highly in existentialism. He is a nonreligious man with the mindset of his own. For instance when his mother died he didn’t ask to see her body.

O’Connor’s depiction of the wooden leg in the story is a mild comparison to the amputation of her very soul threatened by imminent death relating to Lupus. To O’Connor her life became ugly and she voiced this matter of fact to Langkjaer in her comments about a self portrait that she had painted that was not flattering or attractive. Just as Hulga was highly educated, Flannery did know that she had high intelligence though she couldn’t spell and wasn’t good at Math. When her once last chance at love before her death was gone, it sparked emotions that had to quickly be dealt with and so O'Connor penned her masterpiece about her pain, her broken heart, her broken spirit and broken soul. Through this experience of loss of love and her imminent decline fo her life to Lupus, the author wrote a story to cleanse her healthy mind of pain and sorrow.

In Oedipus the King (406B.B) Jocasta states, “why ask? Old shepherd, talk, empty nonsense, don’t give it another thought, don’t even think” (p.1091). Jocasta seems to subconsciously know the truth and does not want Oedipus to find out. Even though she has not yet found out for sure, one could assume that by this point of the story she has a very clear idea of the truth. This is without even mentioning that Jocasta slept with Oedipus various times and did not notice his ankles which would have been marked.

During the Spanish Inquisition many people were tormented and killed because of their religious beliefs. In Edgar Allan’s Poe gothic tale Pit and Pendulum, is told by an unnamed narrator, takes place in a dungeon at Toledo, Spain. The narrator was sentenced to death because of the difference in religious beliefs. Instead of being hanged, he is tormented physically and mentally in the darkness of the dungeon. Edgar Allan Poe uses darkness, evil, and torture in the short story Pit and Pendulum through the character’s thoughts and actions.

1. (TS) In “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, a nameless man murders an innocent friend due to internal and external motivations. 2. (Context + CD)

No one can defeat Death There once was a young woman, who strived to be immortal, this caused her to bind herself away from the world for years. She decided one day that she had conquered death by changing her fate and goes to venture the town where she met a strange man, who insults her, filled with anger she decides to go after him where she faces death. A very similar situation is portrayed in “The Masque of the Red Death” with the character Prince Prospero, who believes that he has changed his fate by locking himself in his palace for years but this doesn’t end well for him as he faces death in his own home. In “The Masque of the Red Death”, written by Edgar Allen Poe, irony and symbolism to is used prove that death is inevitable.

Toni Morrison’s Sula and Edgar Allen Poe’s “To One in Paradise” both explore the implications and aftermath of loss. Both authors argue that although the absence of a loved one can be devastating, even death cannot break the bond of love; one’s thoughts will forever linger on the past, and in times of loneliness, the dead will return in the reflections and memories of the living. In the first stanza, Poe writes that the person about whom he writes meant a great deal to him.