Similarities Between Frankenstein And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Mary Shelley wrote what can be considered the first science fiction novel; Edgar Allan Poe the first author to write detective fiction. Both authors were innovators of their day going beyond the considered logic of the populous, instating originality on their part. Shelley and Poe convey their beliefs within their works. At the time both stories were written in a period of scientific and technical advancement where such science fictions as the living dead and the supernatural seemed a possibility. Both Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Shelley push the known boundaries in their stories of “Frankenstein” and “The Fall of the House of Usher “as they cross the Ethical lines surrounding the matters of sanity and madness, life and death, fate and choice

all in the subjects of innovation and good intentions.
Both Authors tie great grief and loneliness with the stability of a man’s mind which seems a very fragile thing. First, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein shows a man, Victor Frankenstein, desperate for scientific advancement “the soul of Frankenstein” exclaims “more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation.”(Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Chapter 3). Far down the road of discovery he went, so far that he himself feared what he had done. He had discovered a way to animate dead flesh and using this he created a monster. With this creation came the point of Victor’s madness; madness he would chase around the world in order to claim his sanity once more. In connection Edgar Allan Poe’s character Roderick Created his own hell where he “suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light ; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror” (Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher Paragraph 10). Roderick’s madness seems to be connected with his other half his twin Madeline, a madness shared by two as it were. With Madeline’s death Roderick alone within the vast Usher Manor is stricken by grief and loneliness and as observed by the narrator of the story Roderick had Knowledge which he withheld; Knowledge that affected the future of Roderick’s house and home.
The house of Usher and Frankenstein are both representations of a manor and a bloodline.

In the house of Usher Roderick states that Madeline’s death, "would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers."(Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher Paragraph 13) and so with their deaths there family and their house would end. In Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein originates from Geneva where the family has its own manor, the bloodline thriving undisturbed until the monster comes to town and just as Madeline Usher seek revenge upon her brother so too does Frankenstein’s monster swore revenge upon all of Frankenstein’s line. The monster kills Victor’s brother, wife and indirectly causes the death of a member of the help from the Frankenstein residence. Frankenstein had earlier asked “How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow?” (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein Chapter 4) he later got his answer with the loss of family, the loss of a home and the loss of happiness; all of this consequence to Frankenstein’s action of creating a monster which led to his

fate.
Fate is in the hands of man; both Victor Frankenstein and Roderick Usher choose their fates.

Victor Frankenstein created the monster that led to his utter distortion as Roderick entombed his living sister giving her her need for revenge he know of this as he himself said ”I shall perish, I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. […] I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition--I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.” (Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall Of the House of Usher Paragraph 11). Yet in his own madness he feared neither of death nor pain he was only afraid of fear, knowing it would be the death of him. As it was, once she had found her revenge she seems to die with her brother as his heart stops in terror. Madeline it seemed was a physical aspiration of Roderick’s fears. As both their fates are tied to one another with Roderick’s actions. This is seen on either side of the connection between Frankenstein and his monster. Frankenstein created the monster and abandons him, the monster with the influence of mankind’s cruelty chooses to seek revenge, Frankenstein then hunts the monster down to seek revenge upon the monster’s actions. The relationship between Frankenstein and

his monster is a downward spiral which leads to madness.
All-in-all, Both Frankenstein’s monster and Madeline are both the victims of consequence. As concluded through text at both Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe believe in how a man’s fate is in his hands as both their characters were the cause of their futures. They believe that bloodlines are tied within the man’s lives and that the madness of man is cause by such factors as grief and isolation.