The Haunted Palace
“The Haunted Palace” is one of Edgar Allen Poe’s mysterious and phantasmagoric poems. Written in the same year as “The Devil in the Belfry,” and included in his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Haunted Palace” is another tale of innocence and happiness now corroded with sorrow and madness. It is fairly easy to say that “The Haunted Palace” is a metaphor for Poe’s own ghostly troubled mind, more than it is about a decaying palace. For in 1839, it was found in a book that the main character in “The Fall of the House of Usher” comes across. In the context of its appearance in “Usher,” it is startlingly clear that this is no fable of earthly decay, but one of mental and spiritual ruin.
“In the greenest of our valleys,” he begins in the first stanza, “Once a fair and stately palace -- Radiant palace -- reared its head.” The lush and beautiful valley is nothing more than a glimpse into his past, when he was a bright budding youth. The “Radiant palace” is a symbol for his once sharp and clear mind that was filled with “good angels” and pure thoughts. He gives hints to the true nature of the palace further in the stanza, by proclaiming “In the monarch thought’s dominion -- It stood there!” clearly the monarch is Poe, and his though dominion is his mind.
In the second stanza he describes how the smells of “gentle air” always wound its way around the palace. He continues to paint the picture of a wonderful valley, where music moved constantly about, and where the king of the land sat for the valley to see. Poe’s childhood still brings out nostalgia of a prosperous and enchanting time, and where he could be seen as the king, fully in charge of the thoughts that lived in his valley of a bra...
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...ver coming through the “pale door” that had been “Pearl and ruby glowing”. The Pearl and Ruby seem to be his younger self, white complex with rosy cheeks, and now his face is pale and gray and “hideous”. With the rivers of thought now flowing horrid ideas and contemplation, he can “Smile no more,” but he does hear a “Laugh.” The Laugh of insanity slowly creeping in on him, dances its way through the ruins of the palace peering out of sunken bloodshot eye’s of Poe, and his older gray face. Poe was only thirty years old when he wrote “The Haunted Palace” and included it in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” He would only live for ten more years, and write many more gothic classics, each wrestling with death, insanity, and loneliness, but perhaps this poem describes his view of himself better than any other of his works. This is his self portrait and self prophecy.
From the onset of the story, it is apparent that Poe is employing a gothic theme upon his work. The narrator’s portrayal of the home of his longtime friend, Roderick Usher was as follows, “I looked upon the scene before me – upon the bleak walls – upon the vacant eye-like windows – upon a few rank sedges – and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees” (Poe, 75). T...
The director I chose to do my Analysis/Research paper on is was David Cronenberg. After screening The Dead Zone, Cronenberg’s work impressed me. Prior to this class I had never heard his name, even though I had seen previous works such as The Fly. Since I had already viewed this movie I resorted to alternate movies he had directed. I was able to locate The Brood and Videodrome. The main reason I chose Cronenberg for my director had to do with his style. His movies are not the typical horror flick one has come used to today. When I was younger these movies were low budget and have a character such Jason from Friday the 13th running around with an ax and a hockey mask. Today the industry has progressed to Ben Wilson from I Know What You did Last Summer running around with a sharp hook for a hand. Somewhere between these two genres Mr. Cronenberg’s work fits in. He is not obsessed with the body count as many other horror directors are and is also able to develop a plot rather rare in this type of a film.
In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe’s use of dark, descriptive words allow him to establish an eerie mood. Poe’s unique style of writing along with his foreshadowing vocabulary is significant in creating a suspenseful gothic story. At the beginning of the short story, Poe describes the House of Usher to be “dull”, “oppressive”, and “dreary” (1265). His choice of words strongly emphasizes a mood of darkness and suspense as he builds on the horrific aspects of this daunting tale. At first glimpse, the house itself is surrounded by the feeling of “insufferable gloom”, (1265) “[t]here was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought [...]” (1265). The atmosphere that Poe describes in the statement above establishes a spine-chilling mood. Poe uses words such as “insufferable gloom”
Edgar Allan Poe is undoubtedly one of American Literature's legendary and prolific writers, and it is normal to say that his works touched on many aspects of the human psyche and personality. While he was no psychologist, he wrote about things that could evoke the reasons behind every person's character, whether flawed or not. Some would say his works are of the horror genre, succeeding in frightening his audience into trying to finish reading the book in one sitting, but making them think beyond the story and analyze it through imagery. The "Fall of the House of Usher" is one such tale that uses such frightening imagery that one can only sigh in relief that it is just a work of fiction. However, based on the biography of Poe, events that surrounded his life while he was working on his tales were enough to show the emotions he undoubtedly was experiencing during that time.
Poe utilizes a gradual change in diction as the poem progresses. Initially, he begins the poem with melancholic diction when the narrator is falling asleep: “while I pondered, weak and weary,” “nodded, nearly napping,” and “of someone gently rapping” (1-4). The utilization of alliteration in these lines supply a song-like rhythm, which is soothing to the reader. This usage of diction conveys a mellow tone. Further into the poem, when the increasingly agitated narrator becomes vexed at the raven, he lashes out at the bird. Here, he states, “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! / Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! / Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door! / Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” (98-101). Here, his uses archaic words and phrases such as “thee,” “Night’s Plutonian shore,” and “thy soul hath”. This usage of unorthodox language creates a theatrical, dramatic, and climactic effect, which leads to an impassioned tone. By presenting both tones, Poe is able to show the contrast between the two. This transformation from a tone that is mellow to one of frustration and anxiety represents the spiraling downward of the narrator’s mental state.
The Colonial era spans nearly two hundred years with each settlement in the New World containing distinctive characteristics. Location in the new world is one factor that shaped women’s lives but religion and economics also played a massive role. These roles however were constantly changing and often contradicting. Since there is numerous factors that contributed to the shaping of women’s private and public roles in the seventeenth and eighteenth century it is impossible to categories all colonial woman in one group. Some historians refer to this period as the golden age of women; however, I tend to see this period as oppressive, with only few examples of women exercising social and public powers.
What really makes the poem so powerful are the elements Poe uses. First he sets the scene, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-…” already it’s clear that it is late at night and a man is weak and tired trying to ease his sorrow by reading old books of “forgotten lore” (DiYanni 1173). Then the poem goes on to tell that there is a tapping at his chamber door. When he opens the door he is surprised to find, “Darkness there and nothing more” (1173). He whispers into the darkness “Lenore,” hoping that his lost love had returned, but all that was heard was, “an echo [that] murmured back the word, ‘Lenore!’”(1173). Angered and perplexed, he turns back into his chamber, suddenly there is a loud tapping at the window lattice. H...
Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Haunted Palace” was written in 1839 and originally published in Baltimore Museum magazine. It is forty-eight lines long, divided into six stanzas, and follows an ABAB rhyme scheme. It uses contrasting imageries, glorious and gloomy, to emphasize a sense of loss for something once-great. It also uses allegory to compare the subject of the poem, a haunted palace, with a man, possibly himself.
Poe also uses symbolism to compare the deterioration of the house to the fall of the Usher dynasty. In Roderick’s poem, “The Haunted Palace”, he describes the history of the house as it began as a strong and “radiant palace”, which over time became a decrepit, disease-ridden cage. The radiant palace repres...
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 tale. The setting not only affects Poe’s narration of the story but influences the characters and their actions as well. Both the narrator and his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, question w...
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,” (“The Raven” 1). “The Raven” arguably one of the most famous poems by Edgar Allan Poe, is a narrative about a depressed man longing for his lost love. Confronted by a talking raven, the man slowly loses his sanity. “The Haunted Palace” a ballad by Poe is a brilliant and skillfully crafted metaphor that compares a palace to a human skull and mind. A palace of opulence slowly turns into a dilapidated ruin. This deterioration is symbolic of insanity and death. In true Poe style, both “The Raven” and “The Haunted Palace” are of the gothic/dark romanticism genre. These poems highlight sadness, death, and loss. As to be expected, an analysis of the poems reveals differences and parallels. An example of this is Poe’s use of poetic devices within each poem. Although different in structure, setting, and symbolism these two poems show striking similarities in tone and theme.
In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe presents the history of the end of an illustrious family. As with many of Poe’s stories, setting and mood contribute greatly to the overall tale. Poe’s descriptions of the house itself as well as the inhabitants thereof invoke in the reader a feeling of gloom and terror. This can best be seen first by considering Poe’s description of the house and then comparing it to his description of its inhabitants, Roderick and Madeline Usher.
Poe uses apostrophe, alliteration, personification, repetition, and symbolism. Apostrophe is completely obvious in this poem. The man references Lenore multiple times, who has passed away and is no longer there for him. EXAMPLE. Alliteration is also present when he says "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt" and "And the silken, sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain..."
Poe's poem starts off by his emphasising of how he feels writes of his sorrowness and his sense of being different from the rest. As many people knew, Poe had never really lived a normal life, both his parents died before he turned three, his stepfather had never treated him well, and his beloved wife Victoria, died so young. In the first three lines of the poem, "From childhoods hour I have not been; As others were, I have not been; As others saw, I could not bring;" Poe writes of how as a child he had never actually experienced his childhood because he was so different then everyone else, he never lived a normal life as everyone else, he had seen how everyone else lived a normal life and lived happily, but could not match his own. He sees everyone else happy but could never feel that sense of happiness in himself, and he never fit in wherever he went. Also, in the next two lines, "My passions from a common spring; from the same source I have not taken;" Poe writes of how everyone seeks to feel joy and happiness, and he wants to feel that same emotion, but he cannot, the spring symbolizes the source of happiness, everyone has drank from that source, the happiness that is, ...
Edgar Allan Poe was able to clearly illustrate the theme, the speaker, and the setting of the poem through the use of repetition and imagery. It is unmistakable that the theme of the poem was love. Poe used an extensive amount of repetition of the word “love” throughout the poem, to convey that love is the main theme of his poem. He also used the phrase “in a kingdom by the sea” many times in order to reveal that the setting of the poem was in a kingdom by the sea. Repetition and imagery also gave clues as to who was narrating the poem. The excessive use of the word “I” and “my” indicated that Edgar Allan Poe was the