In Robert Wise’s 1963 film adaptation, “The Haunting,” Wise uses architectural nuances in tandem with certain angular choices to convey the protagonist’s journey of self-discovery, as well as her simultaneous descent into madness. In keeping with the gothic genre, Wise demonstrates not only the coexistence of the diurnal and nocturnal worlds, but also their point of collision as the protagonist pieces together her sense self out of shards of her own repression. As the nocturnal world progressively takes over, Eleanor loses the ability to hold a firm grip on her long-repressed feelings toward her deceased mother, as well as her sexuality. While the character steadily erupts within herself, Wise uses distortion and reflection as a means to demonstrate …show more content…
Essentially, it is with this approach that Wise manipulates the perception of the house’s architectural structure as a means to display the characters’ chilling unease and unrest. Wise also makes a point of showcasing the house’s actual, physical crookedness and general misalignment, and in doing so, enforces an overall sense of unbalance where everything is off-kilter, even the doors, as the doctor points out on the first night they move in. In particular, winding staircases play a recurring role in the emphasis of distortion, in that they, more often than not, lead into thick, shadowy darkness; this, in turn, creates the illusion that they go on forever, because there is no end in literal sight. The spiral staircase in the library, however, is not just another tool to demonstrate nocturnal distortion; instead, it is quite significant in that it seems to be a key symbol for Eleanor’s state of mind. It is overwhelmingly tall and rickety, and no one dares to climb it all the way to the top. It is evident from the beginning that Eleanor is an anxious person who is constantly on edge, and the stairs, specifically in its shakiness, represents that. She is emotionally vulnerable and volatile, and weighted by a collection of long-repressed strifes bubbling below the surface. She is perpetually on the verge of falling apart, in the same way that the stairs seem as though they will give out at any moment. It is only at the end, when Eleanor begins to fully unravel, that she embarks on an exaggeratedly lengthy ascension to its peak, where her fate awaits. She gleefully climbs the steep flight of steps with carefree madness, and in doing so, she not only confronts, but embraces what she has spent so long trying to suppress. Ultimately, Eleanor
Every story, every book, every legend, every belief and every poem have a reason and a background that creates them. Some might be based on historical events, some might be based on every culture´s beliefs, and some others might be based on personal experiences of the authors. When a person writes a literary piece, that person is looking for a way to express her opinion or her feelings about a certain situation. A good example is the poem “Southern Mansion” by Arna Bonptems. The main intention of “Southern Mansion” could have been to complain, or to stand against the discrimination and exploitation of black people throughout history. However, as one starts to read, to avoid thinking about unnatural beings wandering around the scene that is depicted is impossible. The poem “Southern Mansion” represents a vivid image of a typical ghost story which includes the traditional element of the haunted house. This image is recreated by the two prominent and contradictory elements constantly presented through the poem: sound and silence. The elements are used in two leading ways, each one separate to represent sound or silence, and together to represent sound and silence at the same time. The poem mixes the two elements in order to create the spooky environment.
Marilynne Robinson gives voice to a realm of consciousness beyond the bounds of reason in her novel Housekeeping. Possibly concealed by the melancholy but gently methodical tone, boundaries and limits of perception are constantly redefined, rediscovered, and reevaluated. Ruth, as the narrator, leads the reader through the sorrowful events and the mundane details of her childhood and adolescence. She attempts to reconcile her experiences, fragmented and unified, past, present, and future, in order to better understand or substantiate the transient life she leads with her aunt Sylvie. Rather than the wooden structure built by Edmund Foster, the house Ruth eventually comes to inhabit with Sylvie and learn to "keep" is metaphoric. "...it seemed something I had lost might be found in Sylvie's house" (124). The very act of housekeeping invites a radical revision of fundamental concepts like time, memory, and meaning.
Throughout the story, Poe's imagery of the house and the inanimate objects inside serve to give a supernatural atmosphere to the story. By giving inanimate objects almost life-like characteristics, he is also giving the house a supernatural quality. The whole story centers around Poe's portrait of an insane man. He goes to great lengths to describe every detail of Roderick Usher's mental illness. Poe's description of Usher's face is very similar to his own features. This knowledge turns "The Fall of the House of Usher": a tale of the introverted, artistic soul tormented and unable to function in the ordinary world, into a brief glance into Poe's own struggles as a writer.
In Shirley Jackson's novel "The Haunting of Hill House", there are numerous traces of the representation of the uncanny which was suggested by Sigmund Freud. In the story, the Hill House itself is an uncanny figure to the central protagonist, Eleanor, as it features as her mother which has an ambivalent nature as the meaning of the German word of `uncanny' itself. Moreover, the house also acts as a mirror reflecting her own image so that she can see herself by looking at the house, thus the house is actually an allegory of Eleanor's psychological condition and she is literally consumed by it in the end as the boundary between her and the house collapses. Besides, another protagonist, Theodora, is a double of Eleanor as she figures her opposite side which is her denied self and self-destructiveness while she also expresses the repressed feelings of Eleanor. These examples match with the concept of the uncanny which stresses on the uncanny effect of the `Doubling' and `Infantile complexes' . (Alison 32)
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...
When the story begins in “The House of Usher,” the narrator over exaggerates the description of the house in an attempt to explain his own disgust with the home. Reading Edgar Allan Poe’s stories seem to follow a pattern of dark feelings. His descriptions can give the reader an image in their head of a negative look and sets them up for a negative story. By writing about an eerie broken home such as “The House of Usher”, one could say the exaggerative descriptions are creating images that can depict the possible dreariness of a household. The dreariness may have consumed the residents of the household, which is mirrored in the state of the house. Poe has been said to have grown up in a broken home extending into a difficult childhood and deaths of his loved ones continuing to be a large portion of his life (Giammarco 28). By this mindset, a home can easily fall into a morbid trap of misery and unfortunate deaths. Poe’s drinking problem may also influence the way Poe may see home (Giammarco 22). An alcoholic may...
When the narrator first arrives at Roderick’s house, he notices that when he looks very carefully at the house, there is a crack running through the center. The crack in the house represents the divide in the last of the Usher family. When Roderick had realized that in order for his family to continue he would have to marry his sister, he and Madeline grew further apart, just as the house was being separated by the crack. Also, the house is described as being old, a representation of the age of the Usher family. At the end of the story, the house again physically represents Roderick and his sister. After Madeline escapes her dungeon burial, she falls, “heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and…bore him to the floor a corpse” (Poe 25). Immediately after that, the Usher house collapses onto the tarn. The Usher house in “The Fall of the House of Usher” once again reflects the narrator. When the Usher family died, the house fell
As Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "The Fall of the House of Usher", he uses characterization, and imagery to depict fear, terror, and darkness on the human mind.
The use of imagery or personification increases the suspense in the story, ‘Shadows cower’ is a very descriptive way of showing how frightening the mansion is. It sounds as if the shadows which are linked to darkness themselves are afraid of a greater evil. We wonder what this great evil could be that makes evil itself tremble. Another personification used is ‘candles writhing’. Candles are usually associated to gothic stories, as it is only small source of light within a vast darkness of the room.
Poe also uses symbolism to represent the connection between the house and the Usher family. The description of the house itself has a shocking resemblance to that of Roderick and Madelyn Usher. Upon the main character’s arrival, Poe offers an interesting description of the building’s physical state. “The discoloration of age had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in fine tangled web-work from the eves” (1266). Poe is able to establish an air of suspense by relating the state of the house to that of Roderick and Madelyn Usher.
In Edgar Allan Poe’s story The Fall of the House of Usher, the character Roderick Usher exhibits severe mental illness. Most of Poe’s writings are psychological in nature. The Fall of the House of Usher is a great example of this. Poe’s life was filled with many tragic events. The unpleasant outcome of his early years resulted in a great Gothic Romantic writer. He is a master of writing psychological thrillers, adding suspense and mystery in his stories. The topics of his writings are a concoction of unpleasant, austere, and grotesque things, thus the reader can be left feeling squeamish and susceptible. We are drawn into Poe’s stories by our intrinsic human nature of curiosity and intrigue. This paper gives examples of Poe’s literary style as we examine Roderick’s metal state through his words and appearance.
Madness seems to inject itself into Poe’s tale, The Fall of the House of Usher, from the very beginning. The narrator of this tale begins by using extremely detailed comparisons and descriptions of the home of Roderick Usher, to relay the “insufferable gloom” and “utter depression of soul” (654) he feels when he first sees the place. He describes the outside, with its “vacant eye-like windows,” and “white trunks of decaying trees” (654). Literary critic Victor Strandberg states that Poe “unmistakably depicts the gloomy mansion as representing the house of the psyche.” Strandberg believes the references refer to Usher’s mysterious mental condition and Poe’s intent to compare the two, are solidified with Usher’s telling of his “The Haunted Palace.” Roderick Usher states in “The Haunted Palace,” that his home was “on...
The producer was aiming to create mystery and fear. The dark of the night and the description of the house as feeling dead in the protagonist’s narration sets a suspenseful scene filled with fear and tension. The young girl is followed by the camera as she explores the mansion. When entering the room suspected to be that of her aunts the camera leaves her side to pan around the room. The darkness doesn’t reveal everything but one becomes aware of a search. The revelation of little secrets leaves the viewer with many questions. The room is familiar to the protagonist as she finds items symbolic to her and familiar photographs. This familiarity however does not retract from suspicions that something sinister has been hidden. The producer has successfully captivated the viewer. The protagonist is being followed throughout the scene and has thus allowed for the viewer to bond with them. They are engaging with the audience through narration and have in return enticed the viewer to follow them along their journey. One feels nervous for the young girl however through tension in the scene one does not want them to discontinue the journey as too many questions have been left unanswered. One has been drawn into the world of which the protagonist dwells and is intrigued as to how the drama is
In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” exhibits an accurate representation of the Gothic genre. Edgar Allan Poe’s work presents itself as mystifying because of the way he is able to confuse and muddy up the concepts to his readers. Poe incorporates the disappearance and reappearance action of the characters throughout the short story as well as an eerie feeling to represent the Gothic genre. Poe also uses the literary device, Gothic double. However, critics of Poe’s work have considered that some of his short stories are a parody of the Gothic genre. They are both equally represented throughout the short story. Furthermore, “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a the best of both worlds.
In stark contrast to the naturalistic, photorealism of “Judith and Holofernes,” O’Keeffe’s painting favors colors over humanity, and darkness over warm lighting. Not to say this takes away from the beauty portrayed in the piece; quite the opposite in fact. The portrait, similar to its title, provides an atmosphere of perplexing mystery and oppressive claustrophobia. While both works feature an underlying theme of horror, “Dark Abstraction” goes about relaying this emotion by employing a far subtler method. O’Keeffe’s painting is nightmarish due to the dreamlike logic featured within the canvas. It’s frightening in a way one cannot express easily. For example, when one awakens from a nightmare, any attempt to decipher the thoughts running through one’s mind and varied emotions enclosed in one’s chest is often met with failure. This is why “Dark Abstraction” perfectly accompanies “Judith and Holofernes”; Gentileschi’s painting is a narrative speaking to one’s eyes, while O’Keeffe’s painting speaks to one’s emotions. Both are equally memorable, however different they appear on first