Roderick's Mind The Narrators example essay topic

THE FEAR IN THE HOUSE OF USHER In the story The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe, setting is used to portray many different things. Poe uses setting to suggest ideas, effects, and images. It creates a mood and foreshadows future events. Poe communicates facts about the characters through symbols throughout the setting. In the story the narrator is going to the House of Usher to comfort his friend, Roderick Usher who has fallen into a mental depression. These negative influences ultimately lead to death in the end.

The story revolves around the effects of fear and how the denial of our fears can lead to madness. # The narrator is immediately skittish about the house and its occupants. As he approaches the house, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. (Poe 21) The entire opening scene was gloomy as if he d stepped into blackness.

He describes the house as having vacant eye-like windows upon a few rank sedges and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more Alvarado, 2 properly than to the after-dream of the reseller upon opium (Poe 21). He sees the image of the house as if it were a large a skull and we can sense fear starting to invade the narrators mind. As he encounters his friend for the first time in many years he is shocked Roderick's appearance. He describes him as having A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve. (Poe 25) It was as if he was staring death in the face and he felt, startled and even awed (Poe 26) at the sight of Usher. Roderick Usher had a twin siste named Madeline who also resided in the mansion, although the narrator only caught glimpses of her passing through the halls he, regarded her with utter astonishment not un mingled with dread.

From his arrival at the house to the end of the story the narrator experiences a heightening of fear towards the mansion and its occupants. Upon the receipt of Roderick's letter the narrator is moved by the plea of his only friend. He expressed an earnest desire to see [him], as his best and indeed his only friend. (Poe 22) They were friends not out of the loved they shared for each other, but out of convenience.

Poe writes, Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really Alvarado, 3 knew little of my friend. (Poe 22) They both had no other friends to speak of and shared the characteristics of darkness and gloom, and were both excessively reserved. The poem Alone by Edgar Allan Poe best describes the fear of loneliness the narrator experiences, And all I loved - I loved alone -. Then - in my childhood, in the dawn.

Of a most stormy life - was drawn. Although the narrator knows little about Roderick he refers to him as his best friend to cope with his fear of being alone. He is intrigued with the Ushers family history and is drawn towards him for the sake of excitement and adventure. Roderick introduces the narrator into the world he has created while being secluded inside the mansion for years. He shares that the books he reads are about death, magic, medieval torture, and poetry. All of these things show that Roderick is unstable and obsessed with death.

As they become reacquainted several days pass he informs the narrator that Madeline has passed on. Madeline's death leaves Roderick the last of the Ushers and in great depression. Roderick and the narrator place her body in a vault that was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. (Poe 33) Alvarado, 4 The narrator is not at all concerned with the location of her body and goes along with Roderick's request. Edgar Allan Poe's House of Usher writes it is, Not altogether insignificant that Madeline's burial chamber is located beneath what the narrator describes as, my own sleeping compartment.

The narrator mentions a dream earlier concerning his perceptions of the house. Could the whole experience have been a dream To settle Roderick's mind the narrators reads him a story the Mad Trust of Sir Lancelot Canning that lets all the madness loose. As he reads the story, No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver. (Poe 39) The narrator immediately panicked and Roderick sits still with no reaction. He proceeded to read the story and as he read the scrapping of the doors Madeline appeared at the doors. They had prematurely buried her and the narrator had noticed a faint blush upon the bosom and the face (Poe 34) but did and said nothing and continued with Roderick's request.

It is becomes apparent that the narrator is no longer just a passive witness but an accomplice. As Madeline entered the room she fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent Alvarado, 5 and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated. (Poe 40) The narrator shows us that fear can restrain us from actions that could be beneficial and how fear can be passed on to others, from Roderick to the narrator. He studied all of Roderick's fears closely, meanwhile he was ignoring his own. The narrator was in search of fulfilling his fear of loneliness and his want for adventure through Roderick's life.

It is suggested throughout the story that the events taking place are merely dreams, fragments of the narrators imagination. Poe writes that the image of the house must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. There are also several references made to the hallucinations being induced to the use of opium. It could also be possible that Roderick was the narrators alter ego.

As stated in Edgar Allan Poe's House of Usher, In meeting Usher, the narrator is symbolically staring into the face of his psychological double. Poe shows us that excessive fear can lead to insanity. As the narrator quickly fled the house and looked back to see the House of Usher sink out of sight. The collapse of the house is symbolic to the collapse of the narrators mind. Ultimately the story shows us that we must recognize our fears to be able to overcome them..