The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe

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The human imagination is a powerful tool that sometimes is very hard to control, if it can be controlled at all. In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe uses imagination as a key tool to make the story come to life.

The human imagination is portrayed as a wild and uncontrollable being. This can be shown throughout the story by loss of control of his mental state by Roderick Usher, and by the narrator’s belief that he too is being infected by the house’s tormenting nature. I believe that Edgar Allan Poe personifies the mental concept of the imagination because it seems that throughout the story, the main culprit to the cause of madness is the torment of the person by his own imagination. The unnamed narrator is persistently reminding the reader that things are far worse than he can actually explain, therefore causing the reader to use his own imagination to conjure up something far worse.

In The Fall of the House of Usher, the relationship between the House and Roderick Usher is relative because the interior of the house symbolizes his slow, dilapidating mind. We can clearly see evidence of this by the narrator’s use of words describing the lurid atmosphere of the house. The worn and tattered furniture can describe the wearing down of Usher’s mind due to stress. Later in the story, the narrator realizes that he is unable to help Roderick with his condition because he too finds himself being affected by the house’s atmosphere. He finds that the terrifying appearance of the house is a distraction because it is constantly making him feel nervous.

In the story, there seems to be a supernatural, parasitic relationship between the house and Usher himself. The house seems to be feeding off of Usher’s fears and concerns...

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...he realizes is getting worse. Lady Madeline can represent the stable part of him that he wishes to preserve. This is shown by Roderick Usher burying Lady Madeline alive within the house. She can also represent the painful memories he is unable to let go of. The narrator could represent a part of him that has come to terms with both other parts, a middle man. Edgar Allan Poe uses excellent descriptive words to paint pictures of his past life, his feelings that he shows, and the feelings he chooses to hide. But above all, Edgar Allan Poe uses his unique writing style to show how the human mind and the human imagination are both powerful tools that are very difficult to understand, control, and utilize.

Works Cited

“The Fall of the House of Usher.” Prentice Hall Literature: The American Experience. Penguin ed. Boston, MA: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.

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