Friday, October 26, 2012
The Fall of the House of Usher
After reading background material on Edgar Alan Poe and his short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher," explain in your own words how this story relates to the author and the darker side of the American Romantic Era. Also, choose 2-3 events in the story itself to expand and discuss. You should use your own perceptive minds to complete this exercise. How does he create that "one single emotion early in the story? Credit will not be given to blogs that use outside sources for this particular assignment.
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Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” was a story that showed the dark side of American Romanticism. It relates to Edgar Allan Poe in some ways because of the background of his childhood. Many events symbolize the dark side of American Romanticism in the story. The story relates to the dark side of American Romanticism because of all the supernatural forces that affected Poe and Usher in the story.
ReplyDeleteThe first event in the story that relates to the dark side of American Romanticism was the description of the house in which Usher lived. The building can be described as castle-like with huge steeples on every side of it. The masonry that was laid out on the house was now covered in mold and despair and was starting to deteriorate. The windows were described as eye-like because the house was supposedly watching you. There were disheveled trees and grass in the landscape of the dark, gloomy house. There was also a gate that you would have to enter through before entering the property. These characteristics of a house give me the sense of something supernatural that would happen during the story, and that is indeed what happened.
The second event that relates to the dark side of American Romanticism was the details of the death of Madeline, Usher’s sister. When she died, Usher wanted the narrator to help put her to final rest. They did so, but the place they put her was in a vault that used to be an underground prison in the house. Characteristics like this give me the sense of something supernatural that could be in the house because of the torture, horror, and agony that occurred in that vault. This, I thought, was a very strange place to bury someone you love.
The third characteristic was the fact that Usher said that he put her living in the tomb. The narrator after Madeline’s burial heard many different screaming noises coming from the house. Never did he think that it was Madeline until Usher finally admitted that he heard the noises for days and didn’t tell the narrator. As revenge one night, Madeline went to the place where Usher was sleeping and drove him to the ground with her bloody hands and killed him. The narrator fled the scene quickly, as he did not expect anything like this happen to one of his friends from childhood.
Andy,
Deleteyou did a great job in showing how some events that occured in the story related to the Romantic Period, but I feel that maybe you should have talked a little bit about how this story related to his life in general, like how his brain disorder might have had a huge impact on why and how he wrote the story,"The Fall of the House of Usher", or maybe talk about how this story related to the author himself and how he lived. I thought maybe the story related to Poe because the house to me seemed like it could be Poe's brain. It collapsed just like the house which resulted in death.
Andy, your blog talks of the creepiness of the house of Usher. I also believe that the darkness in Poe’s writing can be seen through his use of imagery with the help of his is dark, strong descriptive adjectives. The look of the house causes a spine chilling feeling to the reader and this absolutely demonstrates the darkness of Poe’s writing. Also Poe’s use of the supernatural made the darkness of the house come to life. Speaking of life, the burial place of lady Madeline also gives a supernatural feeling. Her unknown disease causes wonder, disbelief, and some fear because of the ending of this short story.
DeleteAndy, good talking points! I feel like you could have written a book about each of these topics in general, but you did a good job sumerizing them. In the end when Madeline ended up killing her brother I was a little glad. Not only did her brother pretty much kill her, but he kept her locked in a prision cell, literally, for a week when he heard her the whole time! Both of the Ushers were creepy people and their demise was sort of a relief.
DeleteAndrew, I agree with your point on how the house of Usher was in a sense, terrifying and disheveling. I would have been afraid to have even step foot into that house without even knowing what had been awaiting me. I also believe that Poe's past had a lot to do with the type of writing he created. Poe didn't have a good family life, he never really knew his parents and his foster parents did not support him in what he liked doing. I think the disappointment he felt in everything was really able to be shown in his writings and that that was the only way he felt he could express himself.
DeleteThis story seems to reflect a dark and gloomy feeling. This feeling is what i think prevailed in Edgar Allan Poe's early life. He had familly problems, and always was looking to his stepfather for help. I think both of these things were symbolized in the story "Fall of the House of Usher."
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that happened in the story that reflects dark and gloomy parts of Poe's life is right when he gets to the House of Usher. He describes the scene as the "skys hanging oppressively low" and the entire area being surrounded by "insufferable gloom." These events show, right away, that this is not going to be a bright or happy story. This could reflect his earlier life with showing how he tries to get rid if the feeling if gloom. Just like he did in his childhood by trying to please his stepfather.
I think Usher can be compared to Poe in a way. Poe always had to ask his stepfather for help. In the story, Usher had to ask the narrator to come and help him, to give him comfort. This is much like what Poe had to ask his stepfather for, not comfort in the mental or emotional sense, but in the sense of money. Poe needed money for school, but his stepfather would not support him. I think that Poe may have regretted this, and so, he wrote the story of the narrator helping his friend when it was needed the most.
The prevailing feeling of death from the start of the story was carried through to the end of the story. Everything throughout the story was dark and gloomy, this gave the feeling that something big and bad was about to happen. At the very end of the story, the House of Usher was completely destroyed. I can see how there might be a parallel between the fall of the house and how Poe felt about his early life. Poe may have felt as if his early life had been destroyed by gloom and uncontrollable forces, but the narrator was able to run away and get out. This may have been how Poe felt, like he escaped the gloom and destruction of his early life under his stepfather.
Jess, your ideas on how Usher and Poe relate are so good. Great Job! I also feel, however, that you probably should have talked about why this story might have related to why Poe and his works were a part of the American Romantic period. But other than that your ideas on how Usher and Poe relate are good. I would also like to ask, do you think that the house itself might show how Poe's brain was functioning at the time he made the story, upset and crazy, full of sadness, and in the end destroyed?
DeleteJess, I agree 100% with your blog. Your paragraph about the landscape of the house was very similar to mine but I described more of the house than the landscape. Your third paragraph about relating Usher to Poe made me think a little because I never really thought of it that way. Relating Usher and Poe's life was a great idea. I also felt the same about when everything was dark and gloomy that something bad was about to happen. Again, I it made me think a little of comparing the house falling to Poe's life. It made me realize how important childhood really is.
DeleteJess, your blog comparison of how Usher related to Poe was very well. I think that you could have talked more about how Poe's works related to the darker period of American Romanticism. Poe was one of the most influential writers of the darker American Romantic period. I never thought of the ways that Poe and Usher could be related like you did. This made me think of how Poe's childhood could directly be related to Usher's house. To me it shows that just because you had a rough past, doesn't mean your future has to be like that as well.
DeleteBefore reading the autobiography on Edgar Allan Poe, I thought of him to be a very wealthy man who was so smart and educated because of all of the stories he wrote. I was completely wrong. It turned out that Poe dealt with a lot of terrible misfortunes in his life. He wasn’t wealthy in any way. In his short story,” The Fall of the House of Usher”, it showed me how these misfortunes led to his story making. As a result Poe was a totally different person in my eyes after I read about his background and his short story.
ReplyDeletePoe was born into a family were his mother had unfortunately died at a young age. His father was a raging alcoholic who wasn’t a very good father figure in his life. He was then taken in by a foster family who never adopted him. His foster father never adopted him, and he never approved of Poe. After his foster mother died he went to Virginia for college, but his foster father didn’t help pay. As a result he went to the Military. After that he left and met a young woman that died after a few years. This messed Poe up. He was diagnosed with a brain disorder that almost made him seem very crazy at times. This is what I think was the start of why most of Poe’s writings made him seem to be very weird and crazy. Most of his stories, such as “The Fall of the House of Usher”, were scary and demented in my eyes. His brain disordered I think helped him in thinking of really weird things to put in his stories. As a result, Poe’s life I feel all added up to why his story “The Fall of the House of Usher” was so messed up. The house was creepy with landscaping that was rotten and dreary. The house itself was falling apart. This showed some of the things that led to how Poe showed the American Romantic period in his story.
In Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the narrator of the story went to an old friends house. When he arrives his friend is almost ghost like. The man’s wife was very ill and bed ridden, but I feel that in the story that there were different spirits in the house. After a few days with Usher, the narrator and he discover that his wife had passed away. At this point in the story I felt that maybe this related to Poe’s wife dying in his life. I also felt that Usher might have been a character that somewhat related to himself before he had passed away. He was very ill and almost cadaver like, which is exactly what Usher looked like when the narrator saw him. As result, I feel that this story was almost how Poe felt about his life before he died.
Another thing that occurred in the story was that when Usher’s wife passed away, she came back to life, but was a ghost. She seemed to me evil in a way. This resulted in the narrator to flee from the scene. As he left the house something caught his eye and as he turned around the house of Usher collapsed with Usher and his wife in the middle of it. To me this showed that maybe the house itself was like Poe’s brain before he died. It collapsed with all of the death and misfortunes that happened in his life inside his mind. This showed me where the Romantic period plays a role in his story. It showed the weird side of things such as how the mind and its thoughts deal with scary, yet sad occurrences, such as Usher dying a sad and more than likely painful death. Therefore, I feel that because of Poe’s psychological misfortune it allowed him to become a part of American Romanticism in his stories because of how he thought. I also think that this story in particular might talk about Poe’s life in some aspects.
Emma, I also thought that Poe would be a smart, well educated man. I guess we were both wrong. Your topics are very good to discuss and well in detail, but I think you should have related the story more to the darker side of American Romanticism. You related the story to Poe's life rather well, but I would have liked to see what you would have said about relating the story to the dark side. Poe's life was very crazy as a child, and he really did go through a lot when his mother died because he knew his father couldn't take care of him because he was a raging alcoholic. Good job on your topics relating to Poe's life.
DeleteEmma, I really like how you thought of the House of Usher as Poe's brain. He wrote about what he was thinking. He had some sort of brain disorder which is why his stories are the way they are. He was smart, but it was in a really weird way. I think this made him a great American Romantic because he had that dark side. He tended to look at the darkness of life and that is what made him unique. I do disagree with your blog though because Madeline was his sister. Usher really loved his sister because they were twins. Roderick Usher knew that his sister was on her death bed and kept it hidden from the narrator. Good job on the comparasions in the story.
DeleteEmma, I think you could have done a better job relating this story to this darker time in American Romanticism. One thing that made Poe stand out from other writers in this time was that his writing was so much darker. He really looked at life in ways that most people probably didn't think to look at. When you related the topics in his past you did a really nice job with providing details. Madeline however, was Usher's twin sister, not his wife.
DeleteEmma your blog was somewhat informative, but it was suppose to relate Poe’s writing to the darker side of the Romantic Era. This blog provides too much information about the biography and you did not provide enough examples to show the dark emotions created within his writing. What I found interesting was that Poe's had a brain disorder? I did however like how you talked about how Usher’s image seemed ghost-like. I wish you would have gone more into detail about how this relates to the supernatural and darkness of the world.
DeleteEmma, I disagree with how you interpreted the Poe's style of writing. Poe's writing was very dark, stirring up a true gothic style to the Romantic Era. Yes, he wrote with a dark side, but I would call that brilliance, not "messed up."I also noticed that you mainly focused on his biography, and still had some incorrect information from it. Poe did not have a brain disease, but being an alcoholic could have contributed to his style of writing. Also, as Madeline was an important aspect of the story, it is vital that you realize that she was Usher's twin sister, not his wife. In the end, you mentioned that she came back as a ghost, but I interpreted that different. In the story even, Usher exclaims that they mistakenly buried her alive.
DeleteEmma, I'm really glad you decided to say exactly what you thought about Poe's writing style! Many people don't like it for the same reasons you do and I'm glad you came out and said. The whole idea of the story was really exciting to me, but that's because I prefer endings that terrify and anger people more than endings that leave you content. I don't like the way Poe writes. I don't like that I have to have a dictionary beside me to look up a word every four seconds. It's perfectly alright to not like the way someone writes. Now, as to everything else you wrote I forgot about the brain disorder! That just ties the story in even more considering both of the Ushers were suffering from a mental disability. I think you ended up tying his life into his story very well. Good job Emma.
DeleteOh my bad on the wife thing and the romantic era. Thanks for the correction guys!:)
DeleteThe house depicted in the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is one that is extremely gloomy. The day depicted was also dark and gloomy. This reminds me of the darker side of the American Romantic Era. It relates to Edgar Allan Poe because of how dark his childhood was. His father drank heavily and abandoned him and his mother when Poe was only a baby. She then died before his third birthday, so he was an orphan. He was never formally adopted, but he was taken in by a family. Poe moved around in between families and eventually started writing. I think a lot of the reasons why his works are so dark. Early in the story, just by his explanation of the house, and the dark gloomy day, I think that it sets the mood for the whole story. In my opinion, if you start out with something dark and gloomy, it is hard to get away from that initial mood. I think that is the emotion most people will feel throughout the course of the whole book.
ReplyDeleteAs I mentioned before, the description of the house where Usher lived was very gloomy. The first sentence in the story depicted this. We can already start to sense that this is going to be a darker or sad piece of literature. Continuing on in the story, a house is described. The stone was covered in mold and was starting to rot away. Apparently the windows were like eyes because they were always watching you. If you know the background on Poe it is easier to understand why his descriptions of things are so dark. I think that his background is one of the reasons why he was such a great writer. He turned the dark times in his past into something great in the future.
I think that another thing that relates to the darker side of American Romanticism was when Usher’s sister Madeline died. Death is a dark event most of the time. This event goes with the dark theme we see throughout the whole course of the book. Madeline’s final resting place was in a vault that used to be an underground prison. Apparently Madeline was put in the tomb alive by Usher. This is a very dark event that most people don’t do. Something supernatural starts to take place; people started hearing strange noises coming from where she was buried. Madeline eventually ended up killing Usher. This is a dark supernatural event that isn’t something that a lot of people of the time would write about. This is why I think that Poe was a great writer during the darker end of the American Romanticism period.
Yes, the prevailing mood of this entire story was gloomy. I also thought the same ad you did with the house relating to Poe. I liked the way you showed how this reflected the darker side of Romanticism. The supernatural side of the story does go along with the darker side of romanticism, it deals with nature, even though it may be supernatural it is still nature, just a "darker side" of it. I liked your post, it was very thorough.
ReplyDeleteEdgar Allan Poe is an author of the Romantic Era, but he is very distinguished. Poe resembled the darkness of the era. Throughout Poe’s literature a pictured can be painted just like in his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”. This story’s imagery is dark, evil, and creepy and is slightly disturbing. Poe talks in the sense about nature just like the other writers of this era, but about the supernatural. Death is seen as dark and mysterious instead of happy in heaven. This blog is appropriate this week because of the upcoming holiday: Halloween. Is the House of Usher a trick or a treat?
ReplyDeleteThe darkness of his writing can be seen visually through his descriptive adjectives. Poe describes the house in such a way that it reminds me of an abandoned, haunted house. Poe actually refers the house as the mansion of gloom. The house gives off a creepy vibe because of the surrounding decayed trees/fungi and the foul smelling air which reeks up the air of heaven. Also the house has crumbling stone walls and all of the woodwork rotten. Yet the house has a Gothic archway giving the house character.
Throughout the story the narrator (Poe) hears many stories about the house of Usher. One being of the stories being about Lady Madeline. Lady Madeline was Usher’s sister who supposedly died of an unknown disease. This disease confused and baffled all the physicians and doctors of the area. Also I believe that the darkness of the story grows as they talk of the deceased girl and how she was buried in the dunging of the house. (Which I believe is gross and creepy) In comparison to Emerson, Poe writes of death as horrible while Emerson speaks of it as a circle of life and the greatness of God and heaven. Throughout the novel the superstition of this haunted house grows with the abnormal noises heard through the halls.
Marla, I like the description of the house that you gave in the second paragraph. It really gave me a better picture of the house and really made me think of how creepy it really was. I didn't see the story as being compared to Emerson. These two writers wrote from two different worlds and concentrated either on the happy or sad parts of life. I thought of the story more as a life story of Poe and how he put all of his experiences into something that will be read by millions of people. Poe wasn't a rich man, but his stories are still used today.
DeleteMarla, when I was writing my blog I did not even think about what weekend it was. You made a good point with how it is Halloween. During Halloween it is a time where things get creepy and scary. This is just how the writings on Poe were. They talked about heaven but in a dark mysterious way. Unlike anyone had ever done before. I feel like in your blog you should have expanded more on the events that had happened in the story. Like what about the sister and the girl that died in the house? I do agree with how you said at the end Emerson and Poe belong to the same era but just have different out looks on things
DeleteMarla, I agree that Poe was a dark kind of writer. I think that the reason that he was that kind of writer had a lot to do with his childhood. Poe basically had no parents as he was growing up and he felt abandoned. I think that for this reason this is essentially why he can describe things of darkness so well. I think that he lived in the darkness whenever he was a child and finally found a way to express it as an adult whenever he found poetry.
DeleteMarla, I completely agree with Poe's writing painting us a landscape. While I read the story, my mind thought up images of a haunted mansion, and the description of Usher made me think of a dead man walking. I agree that Poe brought a completely new style of writing to the Romantic Era. Most of the First Quarter, we went from the harshness of Calvinism, to the beauty of Romanticism, and now to a dark, gothic writing. I also like that you incorporated the Halloween holiday in with our story.
DeleteThe House of Usher sounds like a story of Edgar Allen Poe’s life. Poe had a rough childhood and never really had parent figures. His mother and father left him and he later lived with his stepparents. His stepdad took care of him, but didn’t really love him. He wanted Poe to go off to the Army, but Poe didn’t want to. Poe then got kicked out and lived with his aunt. He ended up going to the Army to please his father and married a 13 year old girl. Poe ended up having a gambling problem with the money he made off of stories he wrote and was left on his own with his wife. Poe’s stories didn’t sell for a whole lot of money because some people felt like they couldn’t relate to them. Poe started his down hill decline when his wife died.
ReplyDeleteI think that when Poe started to write "The Fall of the House of Usher", he was going for a gothic look for the story. It starts out with the unknown narrator traveling to his friend's home. One of the aspects that I thought about was when the two characters would read to each other. It seemed a little different for the two men to just sit around and read to each other for days. Usher seemed very ghost like and seemed like he wasn't always present. This reminded me of the point of Poe's life when he was an alcoholic and he seemed to loose control of his life.
Another thing that really stuck out to me was when they were reading the story “The Mad Tryst” and they could hear the sounds of the story in the house. All of the sudden, a storm outside the window starts and a doorway swings open. Madeline is in the door way and it is discovered that she was alive when she was buried. Madeline comes over to Usher and they both fall to the floor, to their death. The narrator runs out of the house but notices a flash of light and turns around. The House of Usher had fallen and the only thing left was a pile of rubble.
This story is a prime example of American Romantism. It talked about the darkness of life that most people didn't think about in that time period. The idea of a house coming to life and the person living on it knowing his sister is going to die is something that I would have never thought about of I wouldn't have read the story.
The story really did sound like a story of Poe's life. It had so much gloom and doom in it. It revolved around a man who was comparable to Poe. It makes you wonder if he purposely wrote the story this way, or if this is just the way he writes, without thinking about it. I tend to think the later, if you write something, and you feel happy, you will probably write something happy. I think Poe was gloomy, that is what i got from the information on Poe, and from this story.
DeleteCamille, I agree with you very much on how this story is pertaining to his life. All the negative things that have happened in his life is making him have this gloomy dull outlook on life. I think this is where he got the inspiration for his story. I feel like how you said it was odd for the two men to be reading to each other isn’t really that odd. This could have been a way that that they communicated and how they really reached out to each other to try to explain all the weird things that had been happening. You made a good point in your last paragraph. Most people didn’t realize that this era was more than just what they had been reading. Poe showed a whole different side of this type of writing.
DeleteEdger Allen Poe was not the typical writer of his time. The Romantic Era had writers like who talked about the positive side of nature and how death and all the negative things in life could somehow be positive. Poe on the other talked about these types of topics in a much more gloomy way. I feel like he had almost a negative outlook on life because of his past childhood and growing up. When he was only very small hi mother died and his father pretty much abounded him. He was then sent to live with another family. During his time living with this family he never felt like he was really loved. After some years with trying so hard to get the affection he wanted he quit and went out on his own. This is where he then married. His wife ended up dying soon after the marriage. He then started to drink to escape the real world. Poe then grew unstable and started getting sick he did not last long before he died himself. I think all these horrible experiences that he went through had a lot to do with how he wrote about things.
ReplyDeleteIn his story “The Fall of the House of Usher” he really relates to all that has happened to him during his life time. This writing is very dark and gloomy. It shows how horrible and creepy death and the afterlife can be. During this he goes and visits a friend that has wrote to him. He has not seen the friend in many years. The friend lives in a huge mansion with his wife. At the beginning of the story, in the first line he makes us picture in our head a gloomy picture of what type of day it is. From here on out through the rest of the book we picture the whole story talking place with this type of weather going on. The type of weather that’s all dark and mysterious ands at any moment anything could just jump out at you.
“Although as boys, we have been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend.” I feel like his friend in the story relates to his family that kind of adopted him. He had been friends with him when he was a boy. They did a lot together but now that he looks back on it he is starting to realize that he hardly even knew much about him. When he was younger he never really cared about that either. This relates to the family that he was with after his parents had died and left him. He was with them all growing up but he never felt like he was really part of the family or loved.
Another part in the book is when they are sitting in his friend’s room and he says “I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.” This shows how dark and gloomy the place really was. He wanted you think that even something as simple as breathing had a negative affect because of how horrible the world was. I think that this relates to his life. It goes back to everything that had happened. Poe tried to make a better life for himself but sorrow seemed to always follow him, it’s like it was gloom that hung in the air and it was everywhere that he seemed to be. These are some of the ways that Poe using his types or writing to be different from all the writers before him. He is taking the negative and truing it into great stories.
Hayley, you're right about Poe not being typical to start with, but he somewhat created an entirely new genre. He created a new type of story that almost became typical afterwards. Also, he was very not typical in the way that he went about publishing his works. He sold them to random people for very small amounts of money, and even after he became famous, he was still a very poor man. He died a poor man, even with his poems and short stories being so popular.
DeleteWhenever I read Poe's background, I was very surprised to find out that he had come from a hard family. In this way, though, I can see how that can relate to the types of poems and stories that he wrote. He was the type of writer who wrote with a sort of darkness in him. I think that the darkness he wrote about came from the way he was raised as a child. His father wasn't there for him being that he was a drunk and his mother had given him up before even getting to know him. I think that this type of abandonment is what led Poe to thinking and writing about the dark side and the creepy kind of things.
ReplyDeletePoe had discovered how a man to whom he used to be great childhood friends with had become sick. He did not recognize Usher because he was pale and he seemed ghostly. Poe also describes how the house reflects what he sees in Usher. The house house a ghostly feel to it. It is very creepy and it seems old as well as untouched. There are certain aspects that stand out and create Poe to feel like he is afraid and bone-chilled.
Morgan it surprised me a little bit also when I found out his family background. Usually good writers have pretty good pasts full of loving families and just had a great life. His emotions related to his stories so well, just by the darkness of his writing you can tell that he is referring a lot of things to his life. Maybe instead of letting his childhood and rough life get to him, he started writing. Is a good thing too, because his stories are breathtaking.
DeleteEdgar Allen Poe lived a bad life. He never knew his father and was raised by his mother for a short time before she died. His foster father did not really ever bond with Poe. All of this and more likely had an effect leading to Poe’s darker style of writing. The story “Fall of the House of Usher,” is a very dark story. The protagonist of the story is never named, but he visits an old friend, Roderick Usher, in his old style house. As the story goes on it becomes increasingly apparent that Roderick is slowly losing his mind. Aside from going insane, Roderick is also worried about the health of his sister Madeline. At a key point in the story, Madeline dies much like how people Poe actually cared about died. His mother died before he really had a chance to get to know her and later in his life his wife died. The death of someone so close to a major character in the story may reflect the deaths Poe had to live with.
ReplyDeleteOne moment I like was in the beginning of the story, when the protagonist is walking toward the house he looks down for a moment, then back up to see the house as something different. He saw the house as if it were destroyed and decayed. The vision did not last very long, he quickly shakes of what he saw and simply thought of it as a dream. This moment is great foreshadowing, it tells of the nightmarish future to take place in the house. This appearance of the house does not actually become true until the very end of the story. Another moment I liked was near the end of the story, when the protagonist was trying to calm down his insane friend by reading to him. As he was reading he would stop because he heard the sounds occurring in the book he was reading actually happening. It was not until the third time it happened when he realized that Roderick had been hearing them also. That would have to be an incredibly unsettling occurrence to have happen. Hearing the sounds a book is describing not in your mind but actually around you. The real dark part is what happened after that, Madeline was alive, or more undead than anything, and it was her making the sounds to prove her existence. Out of vengeance she kills her brother for leaving her for dead while the protagonist of the story flees for his life. When he escapes the house he turns to see the it is becoming like how he saw it in the beginning of the story. That event is something that I really liked, making a vision at the beginning of the story become something that truly happened at the end was great. Considering the evil occurrences that happened in the house, the state of the house was very fitting. With the house remaining in pieces, the story ends leaving much to the imagination.
Tyler, I agree that the death reflected the deaths in Poe's life. However, I do not completely agree with your viewing Madeline after she returns. We can't be sure wether it was her, alive and escaped from her tomb, or if it was her ghost. Howere, I believe that it was more supernatural because of the noises coming from throughout the house and the strangely colored gases surrounding the household. Also, I believe that the crumbling of the house was brought on by her anger of being buried while still alive. At least, that is what I got out of the story.
DeleteThe story relates very closely to Poe. He was very nearly insane, haunted by his lack of parents and the death of his young wife. He also always felt betrayed by his foster parents. All of these terrible occurances in his life led to his Gothic style of writing. The story of "The Fall of the House of Usher" delves into just how twisted Poe's mind was.
ReplyDeleteAs the story begins, the narrator arrives at the house of Usher, which is severely dilapidated. This shows how the Roderick is neglecting the needs of the house in his madness. He ignores the fact that the house was crumbling around him with the stress of his sister's illness. The house does not entirely crumble until the end, but it was merely a vision which forshadowed the ending. I believe that this shows Poe's own belief that he is not doing enough to support his family and is neglecting them for his own selfish needs, such as the feeding of his addiction to alcohol.
After Madeline's death, the narrator of the story observes that her cheeks are still rosy, which sometimes happens soon after a person has died. However, it foreshadowed to the fact that she was believed to be still living by her brother, Roderick. I think that this relates to Poe's belief that both his parents and foster parents left him behind in one way or another: his father, for never being there, his mother, for dying, and his foster parents, for not caring enough about his welfare.
At the end of the story, when Madeline escapes from the tomb during the narrator's reading of "Mad Trist" to Roderick, the sounds that they hear are those of Madeline. Roderick had slowly been becoming more and more insane as the story progressed. He heard the noises from Madeline for many nights. When Madeline appeared, covered in blood from her efforts to escape, the narrator escapes. As the narrator escapes, the house behind him crumbles to the ground with Roderick and Madeline still inside. The crumbling of the house was very similar to the crumbling of both Roderick and Poe's minds. Poe was a very, very troubled man throughout his life, and once enough had occured, his brain became disjointed, and he slowly became insane.
The naming of the story came from the ending of the Usher line. There were no other Ushers to speak of, and once the house which the people were directly related to fell, so did the Usher family in general.
Tori, I like your sentence "The crumbling of the house was very similar to the crumbling of both Roderick and Poe's minds." That was a really good observation. Your last paragraph is also written well and points out the fact that as the family came to an end, so did the mansion.I like that, that is a very good way to put it. Good job!
DeleteSo far this year, when we talk about the Romanic Era, we linger towards the beauty of nature. When we read about death, we would think about more positive outlooks, such as in the poem, “Thanatopsis.” Now reading the writings of the great Edgar Allan Poe, we look at American Romanticism from a completely opposite perspective. Poe is well known for this dark, gothic literature. Many people believe that his writing style originates from an unhappy childhood. Poe spent the majority of his childhood looking to please, and, in his mind, failed. He went on a different path; he fell to gambling debts, and the effects of alcoholism. In my opinion, Poe’s dark past and drinking problem (along with who knows what else) shaped him into a gothic writer of American Romanticism.
ReplyDeleteCompared to readings of the Romantic Era we have read so far this year, Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” gives the reader an opposite emotion. His words write a picture; his descriptive adjectives give rise to feelings of misery and depression. I imagined an old fashioned horror flick while reading “Fall of the House of Usher”. For Example, as Poe describes his old childhood friend, Usher, I got an idea of an older, sicker version of Lurch from the Addams Family. Poe describes Usher as a dead man walking, which I feel foreshadows his death at the end of the story. As I read his descriptions, I thought of the skin complection of a corpse, sick and elderly. Also, another example could simply be how Poe described the house itself, not only in the story, but in the title as well. Poe describes the mansion as a dark and creepy landscape. “Fall of the House of Usher” to me foreshadowed how, in the end of the story, Madeline comes out of her tomb, and kills her brother, the last of the Usher family.
Comparing the darker styles of Poe to the not as dark style of the Romantic Era is not something I thought about. The perspectives are contradictory to each other which is an interesting approach. I actually really like your comparison of Usher with Lurch because they are similar in the "dead man walking," way.
Delete“The Fall of the House of Usher” most definitely shows the darker side of American Romanticism and reflects Poe’s own life. The things that I found the most dark and disturbing about the story were: the houses description, Usher’s insanity, and the events in the ending of the book. The things that I feel reflected Poe’s own life were: the fact that the Usher’s had no family left but themselves, the stormy night in which the story ended and Poe’s own life ended, and the insanity within the story.
ReplyDeleteFrom the very beginning of the short story Poe shows the dark side of American Romanticism. The way he describes the house and the grounds around it give you chills before he even begins to introduce the characters and the story to us. The darkest detail I found was the description of the house having eyes. In my personal opinion windows are the creepiest things about a house and Poe gives them a whole new life. They way he described the windows reminded me of the paintings that have eyes that seem to follow you.
Another dark aspect of “The Fall of the House of Usher” was Usher’s insanity throughout the story. From the very beginning we encountered a man who was struggling with his sisters illness that made him sick too. His delusions were even having an effect on the narrator by the end of the tale. He found himself starting to agree with the things Usher was suggesting and becoming paranoid about the house.
The ending of the book shows us exactly why Poe is famous for writing horrifying stories. From the moment we first met the doctor in the stairwell there was a foreboding that somebody was going to die. I assumed that it would be Usher or that the narrator was going to come to an untimely end. But then we meet Madeline, a character I connected with only because of our similar names. After meeting Madeline I knew for sure she was the one going to die. After we discover her disease and the seizures she has I knew she was going to be buried alive. This foreshadowing is an extremely dark element in the story. After she dies the first time and is buried there is even a moment when her brother sees the blush on her cheeks and chest. So not only do the men see that she could possibly be alive still they continue to lock her away anyway. Usher, at the end, claims to have heard his sister the entire time while she fought to escape her prison. I found myself angry with Usher that he didn’t do something, but I had to remind myself that he was crazy and thinking his sister was still alive fit in with his other delusions.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” reflected Poe’s own life in that the Usher’s were all that the other had left. Poe was abandoned by his father and although he was informally adopted he felt alone in the world as a child and further on into adulthood. The insanity in the story fits right into Poe’s life because he was sort of crazy himself. He was a heavy drinker and driven by the urge to find someone to love him to fill the void left by his father’s and his adopted father’s abandonment. Although Poe didn’t know his life was going to end after becoming trapped in a storm it was ironic that the story ended on a stormy night as well.
Maddie, I completely agree with your whole blog. You wrote it very nicely. I love how you pointed out all of the things that related Poe's life to his story, because I saw all of that as well. I never paid attention to the fact that both his life and the story ended in a storm. That was a very good point! Good job.
DeleteMaddie, i think you did a really good job with comparing
DeletePoe's short story to his actual life. Everyone that he was close to ended up dying. When we first met Madeline, it was pretty evident that she would end up dying in a sad, tragic way. I feel that Poe wrote in such a depressing tone because that is all that he was used to throughout his life. Also, it was good that you pointed out that Poe's life and the story ended with a storm. I did not realize that!
Maddie we had the same thinking in a lot of our examples. I agree with everything, Poe was a creepy man. But that is what made him himself. Without his creepy side, his stories would have never turned out this well. They are so well known and they make you attached and not want to put the book down! There aren't many people like Poe out there that have this affect on people.
DeleteAs I read Edgar Allen Poe's background, I understand why he is such a famous writer in the depressing-type of stories and poems, which gives the Romantic era a very gothic-like style. He lived a childhood of absence and heartbreak. He lost his parents and his "foster" father seemed to take care of him and give him what he needed for survival, but never had a high sense of approval for Edgar. He seemed to spend his whole life searching for someone to take care of him, especially in a woman. He married his aunt's thirteen year old daughter, Virginia, which seems odd to me. If you are in communication with family, why did he find it necessary to marry Virginia? He had them for support and all of that, so he could have just had a good relationship with her, especially seeing as how she was dying anyway. He then took after his biological father and became an alcoholic, which is what allowed him to escape his harsh reality. After Virginia’s death, he found another woman that he was going to marry as to take care of him, pretty much. He then disappeared, contracting an illness and a brain lesion, which gave him a little amount of time to live. He was found and then died four days later. He didn’t live a very good life, but I believe some of that is because of him. He could have made his life better, but it seems as though he did not try as hard as he could have.
ReplyDeleteThe short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, it’s a very dark story. It had a constant feeling of tragedy, and that nothing was ever good. It was very cold. Some stories give you a sense of hope and love, but this story was just cold. I think that Poe included some things of his own life in this story. Roderick Usher, the main character, Roderick appears to be a sick man. He suffers from an "acuteness of the senses," or hyper-sensitivity to light, sound, taste, and tactile sensations; he feels that he will die of the fear he feels. He attributes part of his illness to the fact that his sister, Madeline, suffers from catalepsy and will soon die, and part of it to the belief that his creepy house is sentient and has a great power over him. He hasn’t left the mansion in years. Now, Usher could just have this illness completely because he feels sorry for himself because of his sister’s disease. This does remind me of Poe. He contracted an illness right after Virginia died. An incident that happened in the book that creeped me out was as they read as story aloud, all the sounds from the story can be heard from below the mansion. It doesn’t take long for Usher to freak out; he jumps up and declares that they buried Madeline alive and that now she is coming back. Then, the doors blow open and there stands a trembling, bloody Madeline. She throws herself at Usher, who falls to the floor and dies along with his sister. The narrator flees; outside he watches the House of Usher crack in two. In the story, it did not ever say that Madeline was dead, so she may have just looked it due to her illness. This is beyond weird and sounds like it is something that would never happen in today’s time due to all the medical advancements and doctors. The whole story was very weird and kind of scary, if you ask me. It held my attention, though, which many stories usually do not do.
Nicole, i agree that it was very different and kind of creepy, but i wanted to keep reading it! It grabbed my attention at the part when they buried Madeline. I thought that was kind of creepy just to put her in a tomb and keep her in the dungeon. Many of the things in the short story paralleled things that happened to Poe in his real life. Usher had a mental disease, and Poe did as well. Also, the fact that Madeline died. Edgar Poe was exposed to people dying his whole life.
DeleteIn Edgar Allan Poe's story, The House of Usher, we experience a completely new type of American Romanticism. Up until this point, we have read stories about the bright side of nature. We are now introduced to a darker side. I think that Poe's background really influenced his type of writing. His mother died, his father was a heavy drinker, his foster father did not really accept him, and his wife eventually died. He was exposed to tragic loss his whole life. I think this is why his stories were more dark and Gothic.
ReplyDeleteThe way that Poe describes the house is one way that i thought it relates to the dark side of this era. He describes the windows as vacant and eye like. This gave me a creepy feel that the house was watching everyone. The rank sedges show that is was a wet, dreary place. The crumbling stones and the plants overtaking the exterior give a sense that no one keeps up with the house. He also says that all of the trees are decaying. Once inside the house, he explains the dark passages, the black floors, and long, narrow windows. This gives a sense of death, and darkness throughout the place. The gloomy description of the house gave me a feeling of something supernatural.
When Madeline died, they placed her in a tomb and locked it in the building that was once used for an underground prison. They didn't want doctors to steal her body to use for medical dissection. This personally gave me the chills. After they buried her, he could not sleep at night and he kept having nightmares. There had been a change in Roderick too. He would hurry from chamber to chamber. As the man was reading Usher a story, he went into a sort of trance. Then lady Madeline stood in front of them. The way he describes her gives a dark, scary image. She had blood on her white robes and it was obvious she put up a struggle. He describes the storm and the blood-red moon outside the window. This all gives us a feel for the dark side of the American Romanticism Era.
Poe lived a very unfortunate life, going through many close deaths and never having a father. Those must have influenced his writing style to being as dark as it was. Poe's description of the house shows how dark his mind really is. I actually really like what happened with Madeline at the end of the story, seems like something from a horror story. Poe has a great way of describing the dark deeds that happen in his story.
DeletePoe didn't have a very goo life and childhood. His mother died at a young age and his father was an alcoholic. This might actually be the reason his writing is as gloomy and dark as it is. He writes about negative matters most of the time a lot about supernatural matters and just the darkness of the world in general. Before I even read The House of Usher, I assumed it was going to be dark and somewhat scary because of the appearance of the cover page. Also Poe is known writer about supernatural matters.
ReplyDeletePoe gives us the idea of a gloomy neighborhood, and a gloomy house which is the house of Usher. This house was creepy and had dead trees and plants. That might be telling us that nobody has been their for a while to take care of it. He described the windows as eyes, like they were watching you as you walked by. The house you picture in your head after he describes this is probably a gross dark untreated house that pretty much looks dead.
Usher has craziness throughout the story. He was always paranoid and had an almost insane way of words. He would talk about a mans sister with her illness and how it spread to his brother whom was trying to help her get better. It was almost like the same thing happened with him and the narrator with Poe's craziness, he started to become a little creepy and paranoid towards the end of the book. Sometimes that happens when you are around someone too much, you become like him. And since the narrator was telling the story, Poe's insanity most likely grew on him. The narrator started to agree with Poe and write in his feelings which was kind of weird yet interesting how much Poe had changed him.
During the American Romantic Period, Edgar Allen Poe was one of the authors that emerged out on top. However, Poe approached his writings in different ways than that of the other poets. With such stories like "Fall of the House of Usher", Poe reflects on his dark and troubled past. A key symbol that is used to resemble this darkness would be all of the supernatural forces that affect both Poe and Usher throughout life.
ReplyDeletePoe takes time to describe the house that Usher lived in. This type of house screams darkness through its gross and disturbing description. Poe talked about the castle-like aspects of the house. However, the "castle" was becoming overgrown with mold and decay. A stereotype of a "haunted house" comes alive when the windows were somewhat referred to as having eyes that follow your every move. The vegetation was not kept up with. To top everything off, the entire property was enclosed within a gate, having only one entrance, otherwise being trapped within. This ominous presence, which was romantic because of his natural statements and settings, had me on the edge of my seat the entire time while reading because the setting alone gave me a feeling of darkness and further trouble to come. Some of these dark descriptions could be reflections of the past life that Poe led. After the death of his mother, abandonment from his father, neglect from his foster parents, and death of his young wife, Poe was probably shaken up in ways unimaginable, creating senses of despair in his writings.
Poe and Usher become very comparable throughout the course of the entire story. In the beginning, describing the original gloom of the house, Poe could really be referring back to his troubled days. Poe was trying to search for different sources to come about during his young age, with most of his troubles being cured by his stepfather. In ways, Usher is looking on the narrator to help him in his time of need at the castle. When denied the support that was truly needed from his father, Poe may have needed another outlet to help him out, which could have been this story. We learn about Lady Madeline, Usher's sister, and her death from a completely unknown disease that the doctors could not pinpoint. We discover that she was placed inside the dreary dungeon as a resting place for the time being. However, she was buried alive. When she comes back to the surface of the Earth inside the house, she takes Usher to their final death together. When the narrator finally makes his escape, he finds that the house is destroyed. The series of unfortunate events finally ends.
I think some of the main aspects of Romanticism were hidden within the story. Most people of this era were not used to hearing people speaking about all of the despair in the world. Compared to the glorifications of death that Emerson spoke of, Poe spoke of death in some of the most feared ways imaginable and created a sense of fear inside all of us.