Preview

The Fall Of The House Of Usher Research Paper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
677 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Fall Of The House Of Usher Research Paper
Stories about death, illness, and mental breakdowns are not the typical stories that would be first pick for most readers. Edgar Allan Poe wrote about all three of these things and other tragic events. In the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, written in 1839, is of the deteriorating house like Poe’s deteriorating life. In “The Systems of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”, the inmates of the asylum are controlled their own experiments. In the “Angel of odd” an alcoholic needs to make many decisions, and each decision he makes only becomes worse and worse and puts him in a deeper hole. Through examining Poe’s personal life with his stories a reader can conclude that the two mirror each other with mental anguish, his love for women, and alcoholism.
Throughout Poe’s life he struggled with mental anguish, which is a mental suffering, including feelings of distress, anxiety, depression, and grief. Poe would often write about his life using the characters to represent himself and other loved ones. In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, there was a character named Roderick who had a twin sister Madeline. They both have acute senses where they can hear, taste, feel, smell, and see exceptionally well. Madeline also has cataleptic seizures where the muscles freeze and would be left in a coma-like state. When
…show more content…
Many of Poe stories are very dark and gloomy, as was his life was. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Roderick the main character, dealt with mental suffering from a mental illness that tortured his soul. In “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether”, a mental patient that takes control of an insane asylum. And in “The Angel of Odd” the story tells of an alcoholic who was in and out of reality. Edgar Allan Poe is best known for creating an aura of distortion in his

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The short stories “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” both by Edgar Allen Poe have many similarities as well as differences. The theme of death is very apparent when making a comparison between the two short stories. Though the terms of death differ greatly between the two stories, the aspect of death is a prevalent focus in both pieces of literature. In this essay I will compare and contrast the stories “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” in regards to the aspect of death that is apparent in both pieces of work.…

    • 928 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story “The Fall of the House of Usher” tells how two childhood friends the narrator and Roderick Usher after many years Roderick writes to the narrator and ask for help because of his illness that runs through his family. The mansion that Roderick lives in has been there for generations that has been past down. The narrator is freaked out by the house because of the noises from the wind and the appearance of the mansion. Roderick’s illness is making him go insane as well as his sister Madeline Usher. As time went Madeline fainted and Roderick thought she had past away so he made her the burial as every other family member.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story "The Fall of House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator is acting like he is going insane or dreaming. In the story he is showing many signs of being insane and dreaming. Throughout the story it shows his experience at the Usher house, and how he was driven insane. The three ways one can assume that the narrnateris insane is he described the house breaking down,the family being insane and they how there was Altamonte destruction. The narrator is insane or dreaming. The entire story is a projection of his mind.…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Julio Cortazar's “House Taken Over” have similar settings because they both take place in in spooky large houses. However in Poe's story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the setting is different because it is a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year. By contrast, in cortazar's “House Taken Over” the setting is it is an old house that is spacious and makes creepy noises.…

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    His most well know works showcased his depression, in both The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat he showed how his sadness had driven him to insanity. In both these stories, the unnamed narrator, Poe says that he has an unexplainable hatred toward something in The Tell Tale Heart he when contemplating why he wanted the old man dead he stated “He had the eye of a vulture -- a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold” this shows that the narrator is not mentally stable as he wants to kill a man just because of the way his eye…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Death, murder, and depression are a few of Edgar Allan Poe’s favorite areas to write about. This is a vital reason his pieces are considered Gothic Literature. Gothic Literature, also referred to as “brooding romantics,” explored the capacity for evil. These writers arranged their works with emphasis on emotion, nature, and the individual. However, they did not center their matters on positivity as the other romantics did. Instead, they often included elements of fantasy and the supernatural. Poe’s short story, Fall of the House of Usher, contains all of the assets essential to a Gothic Literature piece, including grotesque characters, bizarre situations, and violent events.…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    "The Tell Tale Heart" as people say, "This story is told through the eyes of a madman.......Who,like all of us, believed that he was sane." Sanity believe it or not, is harder to keep than you think. One thing that I have learned from "The Tell Tale Heart" which is, obsessing over little things, is that obsession can lead to insanity. As it did for the man when he obsessed over the old man's eye and heart beat. Obsessions are a common thing and my three basic points of this are, the insanity of the man in the story, the obsession of negativity in Poe's life and how his sanity was effected and how obsessions connects with my life and others around me.…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Whenever an idea is generated, we tend to share ideas with many others to see if others in our society have a similar viewpoint. These ideas are usually gathered into a broad concept that is then interpreted through the writings of others. A few of these concepts that will talk about today is satire realism and romanticism.…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Let’s go back in time, when scary movies weren’t going to the theaters, but they were playing in your mind while writing a short story. Edgar Allen Poe, the author of Fall of the House of the Usher, which expresses a devious sort of plot throughout the short story. Poe’s short story is strong in the tone for terror as illustrated when analyzing the word choice, and figurative language.…

    • 421 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The theme of vampirism occurs several times throughout “The Fall of the House of Usher” written by Edgar Allen Poe. He shows this theme through many actions of the characters and his use of diction. The three main paths of discovering the vampire theme is to closely examine three important instruments within the story. The three instruments used include Roderick Usher, Madeline Usher, and the House that the two live in.…

    • 1020 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    If one were to say that Edgar Allan Poe is a good writer, he or she is making an understatement of his work. He is one of the most critically acclaimed writers of all time. His stories have put him in a category of notoriety that also includes, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, and Earnest Hemingway, just to name a few. Poe is most widely known for his unique obsessively dark, or gothic horror stories. To many, he is considered to be the “grandfather” of present- day horror. His writing shows that he is familiar with the thought process of a madman, leaving some to believe that he himself was in fact insane, but if he were, could he have the ability to describe such dark thoughts and deeds in detailed graphic account? Most of Poe’s short stories revolve around death, gloom and the mental state of his main character/characters. More often than not, the main character of his stories is thought to have a certain degree of insanity. The “Tell- Tale Heart” does not disappoint. The story follows the formula that Edgar Allan Poe perfected: death, gloom, and mental instability. Some believe it is the narrator’s insanity that causes him to dismember the old man into several pieces and place him under the floorboards while others question whether or not the main character was really insane. In order for one to be able to come to a plausible conclusion concerning the mental health of the unnamed narrator one must know what insanity is, the medical definition of insanity, and compare both definitions to the mental state of the narrator in the story.…

    • 1361 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Reason is something everyone has, but in different amounts. Some people are more reasonable than others. Imagination is another thing that everyone has in one shape or another. However, what is the point where imagination takes over reason? “Fall of the House of Usher”, “House Taken Over” and many psychologists provide much insight as to why and when imagination overcomes reason. It seems that the point where logic and reason are gone, is due to the unknown being in question.…

    • 1190 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could only wear garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror. (Poe…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Black Cat and The Fall of the House of Usher are two very different yet parallel stories. For example, though the stories are different, Poe uses very similar themes for both of them. One theme is Passion. In both the stories, one of the main characters has had a passion for something or the other- The Black Cat: the narrator’s passion for animals and in The Fall of the House of Usher: Roderick Usher’s passion for music and the arts. Poe shows that passion can be expressed in many ways, no matter what state of mind the person is in. Perhaps this could be an indirect reference to himself, how, though he was an opium addict, he had a passion for writing and the opium did not stop him from expressing it.…

    • 318 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays