Fall Of The House Of Usher By Edgar Allan Poe Grotesque Style
Sigmund Freud once said “unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” Perhaps the perfect example of this phenomena is the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Poe’s narrators often show that some traumatic past event has driven them insane with grief. But why did Poe write in such a grotesque style? Edgar Allan Poe relied on Gothic tropes in his short stories because they illustrate his repression of painful memories and showcase how his lack of acceptance allowed these latent memories to haunt him until his death. Poe's characters often experience a withering setting, something that used to be beautiful but has since become confusing, dark, or frightful. The settings plays a major role in
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In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Usher buries Madeline, representative of his insanity, alive. In refusing to confront his problems, he proves Freud’s theory; Madeline returns and “with a low, moaning cry, fell heavily upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim of the terrors he had anticipated” (Poe 108). Repressing painful memories again turns to self-destruction in “The Black Cat,” as the narrator blames his cat for his violent temperament and poverty. When the narrator accidentally buries his cat alive, along with his wife whom he murdered, the cat begins to howl and reveals the corpse. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” the miserly Montresor blames “the thousand injuries of Fortunato” for all of his mental problems, and Fortunato becomes symbolic of the life issues and insecurities he tries to rid himself of (Poe 310). When he buries Fortunato alive in the catacombs, he reveals the true extent of his need for help and companionship. Likewise, “rejection by his foster-father, the death of his loved ones, the loss of his sweetheart Elmira, forced acceptance of a military life he hated, the misery of poverty and starvation, and disappointments in his creative work” turned Poe’s life into a search for a way to escape the pain of his past (Porges 98). In his work he even recognizes that repressed problems only return stronger, yet he could not stop his life from turning into another macabre
In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Usher buries Madeline, representative of his insanity, alive. In refusing to confront his problems, he proves Freud’s theory; Madeline returns and “with a low, moaning cry, fell heavily upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim of the terrors he had anticipated” (Poe 108). Repressing painful memories again turns to self-destruction in “The Black Cat,” as the narrator blames his cat for his violent temperament and poverty. When the narrator accidentally buries his cat alive, along with his wife whom he murdered, the cat begins to howl and reveals the corpse. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” the miserly Montresor blames “the thousand injuries of Fortunato” for all of his mental problems, and Fortunato becomes symbolic of the life issues and insecurities he tries to rid himself of (Poe 310). When he buries Fortunato alive in the catacombs, he reveals the true extent of his need for help and companionship. Likewise, “rejection by his foster-father, the death of his loved ones, the loss of his sweetheart Elmira, forced acceptance of a military life he hated, the misery of poverty and starvation, and disappointments in his creative work” turned Poe’s life into a search for a way to escape the pain of his past (Porges 98). In his work he even recognizes that repressed problems only return stronger, yet he could not stop his life from turning into another macabre