Similarities Between A Christmas Carol And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

What do A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, and Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving have in common? Yes, they were all written by famed and renowned authors. But a literary professor would perhaps favor the answer “They are all political writings.” However, these are not the only political writings out there that are fiction. As Thomas C. Foster states: “It always— or almost always— is.” During the mid 19th Century, a new politico-economic thought was rising in England thanks to Thomas Malthus. He proposed that the human population grows at an accelerating rate in order to take advantage of the increasing food supply, which unfortunately, is only increasing at a constant rate. Ebenezer Scrooge, the protagonist of Dickens’s novella, showcases such Malthusian thinking. Dickens, through Scrooge, says “If they would rather die, … they had better do it, and decrease the surplus
Due to the highly fantasy-like descriptions in his writing, many fail to see the political facet in his tales. In the Fall of the House of Usher, we are introduced to the siblings: Roderick and Madeline Usher. The woman is stricken with illness and Roderick looks much older than he really is. Although not explicitly stated by Poe, an incestuous relationship between the brother and sister is implied. Amidst the madness and decay, Roderick buries Madeline alive, and the latter returns to him in a terrifying manner. She falls on top of him and they both die. Great story. So how is this political? The Fall of the House of Usher is a postcolonial work, written less than a century after the American Revolutionary War. According to Foster, the House of Usher represents the monarchies of Europe, which makes quite sense. The degrading nature of both the Usher Estate and the residents’ unhealthy relationship criticize the aristocratic system of