In the many achievements of Edgar Allen Poe‚ the concept of insanity absorbs the environment of the plot and the characters‚ which occurs prominently in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Using the fears of the past and present‚ Poe descends his characters into madness via the horrors that we all experience at one point or another. Whether those phobias consist of a premature burial‚ the fear of being accused guilty or insane‚ or the paranoia existing somewhere inside ourselves
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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
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The Fall of the House of Usher: Imagery and Parallelism In his short story "The Fall of the House of Usher"‚ Edgar Allen Poe presents his reader with an intricately suspenseful plot filled with a foreboding sense of destruction. Poe uses several literary devices‚ among the most prevalent‚ however are his morbid imagery and eerie parallelism. Hidden in the malady of the main character are several different themes‚ which are all slightly connected yet inherently different. Poe begins
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Psychoanalytical Approach to E. A. Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” The purpose of psychoanalytic criticism is to offer the reader a better understanding of a literary piece by the analysis and interpretation of certain aspects through psychoanalytical theory. The aim‚ as is the case with all critical approaches‚ is to go beyond the surface structure and into the deep structure of a text‚ this time through the study of the psyche and by looking for patterns which are significant and convey
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Bipolar disorder affects many people today as well as in the time of Edgar Allen Poe when it was then called melancholia. Poe was diagnosed with this disorder and it plays an integral role in his story‚ “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839). This story is heavily influenced by this disorder or its presently associated symptoms and also describes one way that bipolar disorder can genetically affect an entire family. To fully understand a story involving this disorder‚ it is cardinal to know the
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share the theme of death. “The Fall of the House of Usher”‚ “William Wilson” and “The Cask of Amontillado” all explore the theme of death; however‚ in each of these works Poe shows a different aspect of it. In “William Wilson” death is presented in an ambiguous and mysterious way‚ as the audience does not know whether William Wilson’s look-a-like is a haunting figure of his imagination or is a classmate that seems to know too much. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is presented through the narrator’s lens
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The two stories ‘The black cat’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ portrays cases of anger‚ guilt and revenge. In the black cat‚ the man ends up feeling guilty of murdering the black cat‚ and in revenge he ends up killing his wife. This revenge also is what leads to him being sentenced to death by hanging. In his other story‚ Madeline is buried alive‚ and in revenge‚ she comes back to life and kills her sister and the house is made to crack. This paper will exploit how the theme of fear‚ guilt
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The figure that Young Goody Brown meets in the forest appears to be the Devil. He is characterized to almost have some similarity to Young Goody Brown‚ however‚ more as an older man and almost fatherly. Young Goody Brown walking through the forest feels that he comes from a family that are pure Puritans and that they are all holy and very faithful to the Almighty God that they believe. However‚ his companion that he meets in the forest tells him otherwise. The mysterious man tells him that he used
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atmosphere and atypical plot developments. Consequently‚ in "The Fall of the House of Usher‚" Poe is distinguished as an author of unique‚ albeit grotesque ingenuity in addition to superb plot construction via his frequent use of the ominous setting to enhance the plot’s progression and his thematic exploration of science versus superstition. In the beginning of the story‚ with an extensive and vivid description of the house and its vicinity‚ Poe prepares the scene for a dreadful‚ bleak‚ and distempered
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Furthermore‚ he uses these narrators to give a different perspective in each of his many works and to really unsettle the reader by what is occurring throughout the story. The narrators‚ whether an innocent witness of death as in “The Fall of the House of Usher” or a twisted murderer as in “The Cask of Amontillado” are used by Poe to discuss the themes of death and murder within these stories and‚ depending on their point of view‚ give a different take on such a despicable act such as murder. In order
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