Roderick's Absolution Of Power In Literature

Throughout history, literature has always been the most powerful medium to voice opinions, beliefs, and ideas. Literature is an unparalleled teacher and a true indicator of who people are. Through text one is able to construct a world of their own and invoke their wildest imaginations and deepest feelings, however, this almost absolution of power can also stir up many negative aspects as well. Due to their influential capabilities, books can become quite tantalizing by provoking a person’s most inventive fears. In addition to this, people tend to identify themselves with a character from a story or become so absorbed in literature that it becomes at times hard to pull away after that the mind can hold itself captive this is even more of an
This could explain the notion of supernatural and phantasmal fear he is experiencing throughout the text. If indeed Roderick is suffering from schizophrenia, then it is quite possible his fears are manifesting themselves. Unbeknownst to the narrator, he believes that spending time with Usher and pouring over books is helping him however it is, in fact, causing to become more deluded and further agitate his mind. Roderick has a fascination with the supernatural and the occult from the many books he keeps in his room. “Our books – the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid – were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with his character of phantasm. We pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of Gresset…” (Poe 709) Arguably it can be said Poe most likely believed that literature and art were able to hold their own influence over people almost to a sense of control this is even further proven when the narrator himself begins to feel the gloom within the house affect himself. “I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room…” (Poe 711) Having spent so much time with Usher reading and living alongside Roderick, he
Roderick is so obsessed with the idea of his own demise that he more or less fantasize and becomes absorbed in his own world of terror. For instance, upon naming the various texts in the room the narrator tells the reader plainly “I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac…” (Poe 709) here the narrator is saying that spending hours upon hours reading literature on burials and returning to life after death would be harmful to anyone. From this point of obsession, it could be understood that Poe wished to express that much of the time we are our own worst enemies and induce ourselves to more torment than needs be when something is