Once I started reading, "The Fall of the House of Usher," I soon realized that I enjoyed reading this better than the other assigned readings. In the beginning, the way the house was described along with how he talked about his friend Roberick Usher, really caught my attention. I knew that there was something strange about that house and his friend right from the beginning because something strange had to be going on for for him to be so effected by seeing the house and his friend again.
My first impression was that Ushers sister was already dead. But then as I continued to read on, she made an appearance by walking down the hall. I soon became confused because I didn't know whether she was deceased or not. Even after I have finished the literature, I still don't know exactly what happened to the sister. But I do feel that Usher was suffering from some mental illness based on him not leaving the house because he was so scared, thinking that something is keeping him there. Along with what he does with his "so called" dead sister. I also found it strange that the doctor never said a word about Ushers medical condition, maybe he suffered from the same mental illness that his sister suffered from, which went undiagnosed.
Before the sister was put into her entombment, I found it strange that she still had color to her face, along with a slight smile of the mouth. Based on what I read, it seemed to me that she didn't look dead at all. All that I could think of to explain this situation was that maybe she was faking, playing a prank on her brother. But would she really let the prank go on knowing that she is becoming enclosed in a tomb? Then I thought that maybe she had some kind of disease that temporarily paralyzed her. But if that were the case how would she have gotten out of the coffin that had a screwed on lid, along with being enclosed inside copper doors? In less maybe Usher went back to mourn over her again and didn't tightly close the coffin and lock the door again when he left.
Another strange part in the literature was when the book that was being read to Usher seemed to be coming alive. Next thing you know, the dead sister is standing in the doorway and falls on Usher, which resulted in both of their deaths. It all seemed so strange to me. I feel that Usher imagined all of this due to all of the stress that happened in his life, his parents dying when he was so young, and then the loss of his sister who was all he had left. With no friends or family to turn to, he started to go a little crazy. I think he actually believed in his mind that all of the events that took place in the literature was real, when it really wasn't. Maybe even after a few months of the narrator living in that house, he too, eventually became a little crazy and started to believe everything was real.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Edgar Allen Poe seemed to raise many, many questions with this piece of work. It almost makes you feel as if you are the crazy one, or as if Poe left out some very important details.
Although Poe is descriptive, his descriptions seem to be mistaken, intertwined with one another, and tangled between diseases, death and vibrancy. For instance, as you mentioned, the sister appeared to be alive, indicated by the color on her face, whereas the brother should have been dead, based on his coloring. However, the two of them were quite opposite in their actions.
Whatever Poe's intentions were with this piece of literature, he definitely accomplished it. I can say this in the fact that he confused and bewildered everyone, but maybe that was the point. I bet he is looking down on anyone who has pondered this work, and laughs.
Your perspective is interesting, but I don’t think that the presented sequence of events was all in Usher’s mind because the narrator is writing this piece. Perhaps the narrator has manifested Madeline breaking out of the tomb in parallel action with what is happening in Mad Trist because of the effects the house and being around Roderick has had on him, but it doesn’t seem like it could purely be in Roderick’s imagination.
I do agree with you that a lot of Roderick’s problems seem to be from his inability to deal with stress. He says, “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” (107), which foreshadows him dying because of fear. Essentially he does this because at the end of the story, his sister falls on him and Roderick is killed by this horrific moment that he had been anticipating from the moment he realized she was buried alive. If he had not stressed himself, he could have just released her once he heard her first movements, as any normal person with a buried-in-the-house-alive sister would have done, but clearly Roderick was not normal and these were not typical conditions.
Post a Comment