Fear In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

How does fear influence one’s actions? In her speech, “What Fear Can Teach Us,” Karen Thompson, Walker focuses on the duality of actions and fear and how fear drives actions. Walker’s argument about the duality of fear, how it can drive decisions and still have adverse effects, is illustrated in The Fall of the House of Usher as Roderick Usher goes crazy, buries his sister alive, and eventually dies.
In Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick Usher is driven to insanity because he fears that his house is haunted. Usher is “enchained by certain superstitious impressions” that the house is cursed, which, in turn, leads him to insanity. This fear that his house is haunted leads Usher to overthink the atmosphere surrounding the mansion
and forces him to the brink of insanity. If Usher would have followed Walker’s advice to “think about what [his] fears meant,” he would have realized he was overthinking and could have stopped his problem before it started. Walker’s speech relates to Roderick Usher as his imagined fear drives the rest of the plot.
While Roderick Usher was driven to insanity, he also signifies as a murder for burying his sister alive. Roderick reveals that “ he has heard these sounds for days, and believes that they have buried Madeline alive and that she is trying to escape.” The anxiety from the sounds Usher had been hearing, were really the sounds of his suppose to be dead sister he buried alive a few days ago. Because Usher feared “ the doctors might dig up her body for scientific examination, since her disease was so strange to them,” he does not waste anytime burying her. Roderick Usher wanted to temporarily bury Madeline in the tombs below the house, and did not think to let the doctors know even if they did want to examine her. By this time, all Usher was thinking about was burying Madeline so the doctors would not see her, and it was too late when it hit him that she was still alive.
In addition to Ushers decisions driven by fear, fear eventually kills the poor Roderick Usher.
Over the next few days, Roderick had begun to become a little more sickened. Previously, when Usher buried his sister, who was still alive, comes back to get her Roderick. Ushers fears were confirmed: “Madeline stands in white robes bloodied from her struggle. She attacks Roderick as the life drains from her.” Madeline came to take her brother after he took her life away. After being attacked by Madeline, “ he dies of fear.” Usher had already feared fear, and when his sister arose, fear itself killed him. All in all, Madeline came back with all intentions to get Usher, and when seeing her come back, fear terrorizes him and he dies.
In conclusion, in The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick Usher’s fear caused him to go crazy, bury his sister alive, and dying. The act of being scared influences one’s actions when taken upon. Usher is driven into insanity over his house, he then buries Madeline after being worried, and the fear of fear then kills him. Usher’s take on fear relates to the real world, because anyone’s fears can get the best of them. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.” Fear can either build one’s courage, or fear can bring one’s courage
down.