Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Department of European Languages and Literature
Rana Al-Ghalib 1700871
Short Story LANE – 615
Final Paper
Schizophrenia and Poe
Outline
Abstract
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia in The Life and Work of Poe
Schizophrenia Represented in The Fall of The House of Usher
Conclusion Abstract
Edgar Alan Poe is one of the major contributors to the literary canon. He was allegedly suffering from a mental disorder. His own psyche was said to be an inspiration for many of his works. This paper will explore the connection of schizophrenia with Poe’s The Fall of The House of Usher (1839). This paper suggests that the characters of the twins Roderick Usher and Madeline Usher are not two characters, but in fact are one character
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His life has the same effect on people as his fiction. One can never be too sure of the accuracy of events, nor the reasons behind them. Poe died at the young age of forty. His death is one of the biggest puzzles in American history. Some critics claim he was drunk, others say he was drugged, and now a new wave say he was trying to commit suicide. This last theory is based on the fact that on November 5, 1848, he tried his hand in committing suicide with an overdose of Laudanum; an opium substitute. Poe is not a stranger to substance abuse and is more often found in gambling debts. He was an introverted character that seemed to have close to a few friends. This explains why only seven people were at his …show more content…
In the letter Roderick asks him to come and see him in his house; for he is not feeling well. The narrator recalls childhood memories that remind him of the good times they shared together. He decides to accept the invitation and heads to the Usher house. The narrator then comments on the haunted like atmosphere, surroundings, and the house itself. He perceives that Roderick has changed. He does not appear as he used to; mentally and physically. He then realizes that Roderick has a twin sister named Madeline who has fallen ill. Roderick confesses that this illness is hereditary in the Usher family and that there is no cure. As days pass, Roderick’s sanity is questionable; he hears voices, hallucinates, and buries his sister alive. Madeline then escapes from the tomb and collides with Roderick only to fall and both die. The narrator flees the house in a frantic panic and looks back to see the house of Usher fall to the
Although there are several theories as to how Edgar Allan Poe died, I think he died from a practice called cooping which involved excessive alcohol ingestion as well. Cooping was a form of electoral fraud where victims are forced to wear disguises, do drugs and drink alcohol and then vote numerous times. Most of the theories involving Poe’s death have been discredited. The cooping theory is one of the most likely ones to have happened. In comparison to other theories, this one is considered likely to be true. There are just too many discrepancies in the other theories to be identified as true.
Edgar Allan Poe was setting out for Baltimore. On October third a man named Joseph Walker had found Poe lying outside by Gunners hall, not normally dressed and unconscious. Poe was unaware of surroundings and was fatigue. Joseph had made contact with a doctor and had sent Poe to the hospital. Four days later Poe had died in the hospital. No scientist had figured out the true reason why Poe died, and we will never actually know because no one had an autopsy for Poe after his death. Many people believed he died of alcoholism, rabies, brain tumor, and the flu, but all of these add up to meningitis and encephalitis.
Poe could have died of alcohol poisoning, but doesn't explain his five-day disappearance and his change of clothing. Since alcohol has been a big problem in his life, Edgar could have just been tempted to drink after not having it for a while and just got out of hand. The alcohol theory was propagated by Snodgrass after Poe's death. Snodgrass was a member of the temperance movement and gave lectures across the country. Snodgrass said binge drinking caused the death of Edgar Allan Poe.
Roderick and the fall of the house of usher have a deceiving appearance. Poe introduces “In this was much that reminded me of the specious totality of woodwork which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault with no disturbance from the breath of the external air” (312). After meeting Roderick and going inside the house, which appear to be normal, it is revealed that the interior is deteriorated. This home is void of others existence, excepting Roderick and Lady Madeleine. He has “A cadaverous of complexion, an eye large,liquid and luminous beyond comparison, lips somewhat thin and very pallid.” (363). It appears to the readers that Roderick has lost his soul due to his ghostly appearance. His illness has taken a toll on his outward appearance.”The ‘House Of Usher’ an appellation which seemed to include… both the family and the family mansion” (311). The house of usher reflects what is going on within the family. Craziness and neglection engulf Roderick’s as much the house. Roderick’s mental illness and the house are
The story starts out with the narrator riding up to an old and gloomy house. He stresses that the overall persona of the house is very eerie. The reason he is at this house is because he received a letter from an old friend by the name of Roderick Usher. Roderick and the narrator were intimate friend at a young age but they had not spoken to each other in several years. The narrator examined the house for a great time as he rode toward the house, he noticed that the house had been severely neglected over time. That the house’s beautiful woodwork and Gothic type of architecture have not been maintenance to any degree since he had last seen it.
The first sentence of the story begins with the narrator talking about “the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, [he] had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary track of country;…” (McMichael). As the narrator is approaching the House of Usher, he begins to feel this sense of eerie, depression, and anxiety because he has not seen his friend for a long while and he already knows about his mental illness so he becomes curious of what he will find but already he is starting to get the effects of the depression that Usher is suffering from, alongside with his mental illness
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.
It is safe to say that Roderick is disturbed, which is foreshadowed in the narrator's ride to House of Usher. Roderick’s sickness could be fear itself, he is afraid of the images and ideas that he creates in his mind. Although there is no definitive answer to the source of Roderick’s illness, it is a result of, “Poe as [a] craftsman[,] intended the story...to arouse a sense of unearthly terror that springs from a vague source, hinted and mysterious” (Bailey 445). Roderick's twin sister Madeline shares many similar traits to that of her other half. They both seem dead to begin with, Roderick being as pale and ghostly as he is and his sister being a doppelganger herself. The descriptions of the duo, reminds the reader of a vampire who cannot see sunlight causing his pale complexion and lack of outside attendance. Because Madeline is described as something of a doppelganger, it gives her a supernatural shade. As far as the reader knows, Madeline may not be alive to begin with which could explain the ending how she is able to comeback from the dead and, in turn, end up killing her
Beside his illness and his sister dieing, Roderick believes his condition is being controlled by the house. He call on the narrator a boyhood friend to in a last ditch effort to cheer his life up and give him someone to communicate with. The narrator arrives to a house of gloom, darkness and decaying furniture. He immediately is afraid for his life and how his friend can live a house of darkness. Several days past and it is filled with art discussions, guitar playing, and literature reading, all to keep Roderick's mind busy from the reality that he is losing his mind. The narrator and Roderick prematurely enconffined Madeline in a vault in a hope to alleviate his metal condition. She is either dead, in a coma, or a vampire. You don't know but Poe allows the reader to make there own assumptions.
By giving insight into Roderick Usher’s life, Poe reveals how individuals can make themselves believe they are mentally ill. From the start of story, it is revealed that the narrator has been requested by Usher to help him through his “acute bodily illness” (18). The narrator immediately leaves
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.
However, the detail given is not a typical description. The narrator describes the Ushers almost as if it was him looking in the mirror, as if he was them. He describes Usher as, "A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid [...]" (p.267) Usher is the physical representation of the narrator's illness. Maybe he's faded from a past illness and the narrator returning is a relapse. The narrator had always considered him a friend, because someone with a long history of a particular illness and who struggles to remember what it was like before they were ill often clings or befriends their illness almost like a crutch. The other members of the house are his other personalities. The narrator shows symptoms of Dissociative Identity Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder. From the beginning, the narrator describes being swept over with gloom, or the first symptom, depression. The second symptom starts to show more after the death of the lady Madeline of Usher. While in his room, he thinks to himself, "Sleep came not near my couch-- while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me." (p.274) The anxiety he is experiencing is not because of the corpse, but because he lost one of his
Poe sets the setting as dark and gloomy, most likely to give the reader the death is in the air vibe in the beginning of “The Fall of the House of Usher”. “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?” The narrator, who is nameless throughout the whole story, receives a letter from an old childhood friend. According to the letter Roderick, the narrator’s childhood friend, has invited the narrator
As Roderick explains that he has not left the house in years, with his only companion being his sister, the narrator picks up on the gloomy and haunting state of the house: “While the objects around me – while the carvings of the ceilings, the somber tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy – while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this – I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up”
A Critical Analysis of The Fall of the House of Usher There are three significant characters in this story: the narrator, whose name is never given, Roderick and Madeline Usher. The narrator is a boyhood friend of Roderick Usher. He has not seen Roderick since they were children; however, because of an urgent letter that the narrator has received from Roderick which was requesting his assistance in alleviating his malady, the narrator makes the long journey to the House of Usher. Roderick and Madeline Usher are the sole, remaining members of the long, time-honored Usher race. This might suggest incestuous relationships throughout the Usher family tree.