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Essay: Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher – symbolism reflecting the narrator’s psychological state

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In Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, originally published in 1839, has conflict with which character is actually insane. Throughout the text we presume that Roderick the narrators friend is the insane one and that the narrator has came to his friends aid. As we read further into the story we come to the realization that Roderick is not the insane one, but it is the narrator’s unconscious sub-personalities’ that are taking a psychological affect on him and is the one who is insane.

Poe used literary techniques the unraveled, but covered up the truth of his own state of mind, “Poe as a craftsman intended the story to do what it does, to arouse a sense of unearthly terror that springs from a vague source, hinted and mysterious” (J.O Bailey 119). Poe wanted to use his literary ability to hide his mental madness that was taking place within his own mind, He did that in such a way by making it seem that his childhood friend Roderick, was going mad and that he was experiencing supernatural forces, “Madman, I tell you that she now stands without the door” (Poe 46). Roderick had then claimed that he could hear the beating of his sister’s heart after the narrator and Roderick had buried her.

Secondly, the narrator was asked by Roderick to read him poetry while they sat inside due to a thunderstorm that swelled up. As the narrator was reading, and more in depth when he was reading portions about noise that were being made in the poetry, the narrator jumped back appalled because what he was reading, he could actually hear. The same thing happened when Roderick played his guitar, “We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar” (Poe 15). It seems that the narrator was catching symptoms of schizophrenia by being in this house for the period of time he was present there.

Furthermore, The narrator had come to the conclusion in the story that the house of Usher was haunted. The narrator describes the Usher’s house to be old and decaying, looking as if it would come crumbling down at any minute. The visual decaying appearance the narrator gave to the house was insight of how the narrator actually felt. Just like the house being in such the condition it was in by being on the verge of falling apart was portraying the narrators mind and how close he was being to losing his mind and being insane but was still intact with self reliance, just as the house was held together by some force. Roderick is the narrator’s subconscious voice or state of mind. Poe was doing his best to reveal this psychological state the narrator was battling with by keeping it covered up with the plot of the story.

Roderick claimed that his sister Madeline and him where two halves of the same person, but if the reader analyzes more carefully then he/she would realize that it is not the brother and sister that are the two halves, but rather so it is the narrator and Roderick that are the two halves of the same person. Roderick is the person trapped inside the narrators mind, his subconscious voice. Though the narrator may seem to be the sane person, mentally he is on the breaking point of going insane. The Usher’s house is actually the mind of the narrator “The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within” (Poe 7). The narrator is trapped inside his own mind and cannot find an escape route and continues to go deeper and deeper in his mind until he realizes what is actually going on, “The sinking of the house into the reflecting pool dramatizes the sinking of the rational part of the mind, which has unsuccessfully attempted to maintain some contact with a stable structure of reality outside the self, into the nothingness within” (Timmerman 211). The narrator finally realizes the truth of the matter of his insane state once his friend Roderick calls him the madman, which was a plot twist based of the fact of Roderick’s state of well being. Roderick is simply the mental state most people are in when the fear of death comes over them, “Usher is notable for its iconographic depiction of the terrors of death”(Cook 4). Once one has gained the intelligence of the descending of a loved one, then that person will be consumed with fear, even though most are not willingly accepted to admit it. The narrator was going mad because he knew his childhood friend was a piece of memory and once he came to the acknowledgement of his friends illness then he started, not knowingly, to ascend deep into his mind becoming consumed with terror which led him to be the madman and not Roderick. Roderick was the subconscious part of the narrators mind once he had came into knowledge of his friend’s illness.

Summarizing, the short story used symbolism to reflect upon the narrator’s psychological state. The house was used as the mind of the narrator, slowly breaking down getting ready to loose his mind while Roderick was reflected as the narrator’s subconscious feelings. The characters in the short story showed the different symptoms or feelings he had going on within his mind. The narrator’s mental breakdown is displayed throughout the entire story, making him insane.

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