Katie Dolinski Honors English 11 Mrs. Kertoy March 13, 2024 The Marxist Lens: Effects of classism Karl Marx believed that in any system there were two types of people: the proletariat, the working labor class, and the bourgeoisie, the idle and management class. Marx and Edgar Allan Poe both lived through a post-revolutionary period which influenced their political views and writing styles. Edgar Allan Poe expertly writes about the madness and isolation that come with being in the upper class in his thought-provoking work “The Fall of the House of Usher”. In every part of the short story, the audience can see that the House itself is an excellent element of the tale to look at through the Marxist lens because it is used to express the family …show more content…
This shows just how important the family was and how high their status was that they did not want to be bothered to live anywhere near the townspeople. Also, this further expresses just how well off they were that the family did not need the help of any townspeople, nor did they need to get jobs in the town. Furthermore, the Narrator remarks how the family did quiet acts of kindness for the poor (Poe 23). The reader can infer that the family did this to gain the support and love of the lower classes. With the expensive house just being a part of their family, and being passed down for generations, the family doing quiet acts of kindness allows them to not be revolted against by the townspeople, similar to what happened to the monarchs during revolutions. To go on, the house and the family were tended to by numerous servants who welcomed the narrator to the house and showed him to his room along with Roderick Usher’s master bedroom (Poe 23). This further exhibits the family's status amongst the lower classes because the family is hiring lower-class people to tend to them, and their very luxurious
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...
Along with being an excellent potrail of suspense the ''dull, dark and soundless...decaying house'' also substitutes as a symbol of Roderick Usher's family legacy slowly vanishing as he shall too. Though the house of Usher could contain multiple symbols on its exterior alone, the lands as well contain hidden meanings such as the ''ghastly river...moat'' that surrounds the grounds. this gives off the hidden idea that much like Roderick, the narrator is trapped within deceiving and oppressive walls of the house of Usher. The house has become a beacon of symbolism as even in the final scene the house sinks into ''black and lurid tarn'' symbolizing that much like Roderick Usher, and the Usher legacy, the house shall become nothing more than a memory. Poe uses these symbols as to show the reader the severity of Roderick Usher's situations before Poe even introduces him.
We first see evidence of this very early in the story. The narrator receives a letter from Mr. Roderick Usher, in which he describes “an acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder which oppressed him...” We learn later that Usher has remained with his sister in the manor that they have occupied for years. The narrator describes the house (and the family therein) as having “no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn...” This can be taken as a separation from the Ushers and the external world. They are made completely out of the house and its surrounding property with no influence from the outside.
In the story, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, there are many mysterious happenings that go on throughout the story between the characters Roderick Usher and the narrator. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe uses themes such as madness and insanity to connect the house back to Roderick Usher. In the “Fall of The House of Usher”, the narrator goes through many different experiences when arriving to the house. The narrator’s experiences start out as almost unnoticeable in the beginning, turn into bigger ones right before his eyes, and end up becoming problems that cause deterioration of the mind and the house before the narrator even decides to do anything helpful for Roderick and his mental illness. In “The Fall of The House of Usher”, Edgar Allan Poe uses comparison between the physical House of Usher and the family of Usher to describe that looks can be deceiving and that little problems can lead to later downfall.
In Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the mythic connection between the narrator’s friend Usher and his family home relays an important commentary on the nature of aristocratic American life. The “mental disorder” (110) that Usher suffers from is indicative of the relationship between the individual and his class status. Usher has an abundance of money and comes from an “ancient family” (111) of a reputable status; however, when the narrator reveals that there is no “enduring branch” (111) to continue the Usher line, it becomes clear that the aristocratic man is utterly defined by the material. This notion can then be expanded to the larger American society at the time of Poe’s writing: through his depiction of Usher’s helplessness and inability to control his environment, Poe is making...
Approaching the decaying old house, the narrator was struck by an overwhelming sense of gloom that seemed to envelop the estate. The very sight of the manor caused within him "an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness." He remembers Roderick's family was noted for the fact that no new branch of the family had ever been generated. For centuries, the title of the estate had passed directly from father to son, so that the term "House of Usher" had come to refer both to the family and to the mansion.
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 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...
With this in mind, some perspective on the society of that time is vital. During this time the industrial revolution is taking place, a massive movement away from small farms, businesses operated out of homes, small shops on the corner, and so on. Instead, machines are mass-producing products in giant factories, with underpaid workers. No longer do people need to have individual skills. Now, it is only necessary that they can keep the machines going, and do small, repetitive work. The lower working class can no longer live a normal life following their own pursuits, but are lowered to working inhumane hours in these factories. This widens the gap between the upper and lower class-called bourgeois and proletariat-until they are essentially two different worlds. The bourgeois, a tiny portion of the population, has the majority of the wealth while the proletariat, t...
The reader feels a certain morbid curiosity in the state of the house, and wonders what sort of person might be living there to let it go in such a way. The disturbed thoughts of the narrator and the nervous, outlandish disposition of Usher also contribute to the mood. His hysteria, manner of speaking, and constant nervousness rub off on the reader as “a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance”(425). The narrator serves as the perfect vessel through which the story comes, bending it to his interpretation so that the reader is almost forced to think of Usher by his fixed perspective, unable to distinguish their own feelings from those of the narrator.
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.
The first reason that the paragraph is successful is the fact that it sets the key element of the story, the tone. When reading the introduction, the narrator’s description of the house paints a crystal clear image in one’s mind of horror, dread, death, and decay. The reader is overwhelmed with a sense of evil. However, if one was to read deeper than what is on the surface, they may be surprised. As I mentioned earlier, in Poe’s time a family was often referred to as a house. Keeping this in mind while reading the opening paragraphs, the reader can very well wonder if our narrator is referring to the building in which the Ushers live in or the family that occupies it.
...hasize the influences that the upper-class social status has on a person’s lifestyle, behavior, and perspective of others. They also emphasize the social expectations and restrictions for the upper-class women, including their social role, appearance, and personalities. It is indicated from the authors’ literary works, that people are judged based on their social position. Woolf, Austen, and Wilde’s portrayals of the upper-class in their literary works show that an upper-class social status does not ensure happiness.
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...
Social class has been a central theme in many famous literary works, that it is hardy a shock for anyone to read about it. Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”, Scott FitzGerald’s “The Great Gatsby”, Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, and Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations” for instance are just some of the many novels centralizing social class.