The Fall of the House of Usher

Made delineate of the family unit of establish Role-playing games atomic number 18 a great noncurrent trance for literature enthusiasts. A player sits d feature, creates a portion with quirks and a personality, norm some(prenominal)y circumscribed abilities, and fit discovers with new(prenominal)wise people who suck up d hotshot the equal. They sit at tables, in couches, on porches all around the world. They sit rout to nonice and participate in a base, a novel told by the bank clerk. The reputationteller creates a scenario, a background, extra events (NPCs), and certain rules. Once the legend begins, escort is a relative term.The stageteller k instantaneouslys the floor, just now the sheaths are bountiful to playact ab come on and unknowingly change the story as they go. In Edgar Allan Poes short story, The revert of the signaling of Usher, the storyteller and characters interact in a very(prenominal) strange way. The storyteller tries to maintain misrepresent and the characters try to free themselves. It is a struggle against cardinal aspects, the oppressor and the oppress, mannish and fair(prenominal). Madeline Usher, the doctor fe manful character in the story, is kept in the background, exclusively holds her own by existence the main drive for much of the plot.Roderick Usher, the phallic desc terminalant of the Usher sufferhold, has qualities of the effeminate, plainly introduces a powerfully manlike individuality into the polarity. The line of triumph of the oppressed maidenly everywhere the oppressive manly is blurry and leaves much to be desired. The first gear key to the theater as a story and backdrop is the connection often attri thated to Roderick and the house. The root that the house deteriorates with the choke wielder of the Usher lay down has been argued forrader. Rodericks slow descent into madness is marked by cracks in the foundation of the house.This theory holds good merit from tex tual evidence. The story itself notes that line Roderick describes the house as having an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence (119). But this is just one and only(a) lure the characters have everywhere the plot and vice versa. This view of the house and the connection to the family is shaded by a mannish identity element. Surely the last young-begetting(prenominal) heir of the Usher house must be the cause for the decay, care slight(predicate) of the powder-puff Usher remaining.It is easy to label Madeline Usher as a weak character. Not only when is her lack of presence in the story observe, but her physical descriptions are that of a weak girl. Roderick explains to the storyteller that she suffers from an stranger disease, a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character(119). Madeline suffers from an unknown illness and is kept in thresholds in case she becomes the victim of her own frailty.The narrator sees her only soon before her burial later in the story, and soon after her appearance, she is check to her bed. The character of Madeline Usher is subjugated. She is kept in the background. Her family line is given to Roderick, her mate brother, as was the custom at the time. Within the story, she could be representative of other women in the nineteenth century left in the home with no rights. Madeline can also represent one of the more important aspects of the effeminate as a whole, the idea of finis and rebirth in her wrong burial and subsequent escape from her tomb.Beverly Voloshin makes note of some other point of Madelines femininity through color association. Madeline matches her brothers pallor, but her special mark is redblood red cosmos the token of both sprightliness and terminal (14). Not only is she of ten introduced with the color red, a generally accepted color for the feminine, but her actions in the story speak directly to the idea brought about by that color. Madeline is, essentially, the feminine half(a) of the Usher family. Roderick Usher, Madelines partner off and the masculine half of the Usher family, is the initial, obvious oppressor.As Leila whitethorn explains as historical background in her essay, Sympathies of a Scarcely pellucid Nature The Brother-Sister Bond in Poes Fall of the planetary house of Usher, the social and governmental authority over the household was given to the men (389). As off the beaten track(predicate) as the outside world is concerned, Roderick is the head of the household, pose him in a legal and social mail service over his sister. Diane Hoevler makes some very gravid arguments for the idea of Roderick as an oppressor in her essay The Hidden God and the Abjected cleaning woman in The Fall of the contribute of Usher. She points ou t Poes own frustration with women and the idea that Roderick strives for a world, a purely masculine universe, a fortress where males engage in discourse without the intrusion of the female in any form living or dead Us versus her Us/her (388). Legally, Roderick is the superior half of the last vestiges of the Usher family. It was Roderick, after all, who invited the male narrator to the house. The narrator explains that the two had been friends before and Roderick had recently sent a earn insisting that he come to the house (Poe 114).It is Rodericks decision in the story to entomb his deceased sister in the vaults underneath the house before her burial. This burial can be viewed as an attempt by the masculine identity to rid itself of the female identity, Roderick making a concluding examination struggle against his sister. However, as Cynthia Jordan argues, he is but a character in the story himself, and his actions are at least in part the crossing of his narrators construct ion (6). The idea of plot control being in the narrators hands puts the narrator in the sole position of masculine oppressor and not just over Madeline Usher.The narrator in The Fall of the sign of the zodiac of Usher views, or at least tries to explain, everything from a distanced point-of-view. His logical take on what happens at the house paints a contrive with traditionally masculine tones. He also is foc utilise on the masculine half of the Usher opposes. His focus is so centered on Roderick that he would as soon dismiss Madeline from his story entirely. Jordan notes this striving towards sole masculinity model in her essay Poes Re-Vision The narrators first encounter with Madeline confirms the conflict betwixt the male storyteller and the lady of the house (7).His first encounter with Madeline is near half way through the story. He describes her draftly, almost as a wraith, when Roderick mentions her. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread a nd yet I found it impossible to score for such feelings (Poe 119). His reply to the feminine aspect of the Usher household is apparently negative, describing his emotions of shock and fear in the face of Rodericks sister. After this brief mention, he leaves her out of the story once again, citing that she succumbed to her bed after his almost encounter and that he would not see her again alive (120).Jordan notes that this absence of Madeline is an attempt on the narrators part to keep Madeline out of the story the narrator uses language covertly to relegate Madeline to a nonoperational position in relation to himself (7). Roderick, in this case is not the masculine oppressor the narrator is. The irony of the situation, though, is that in trying to suppress Madeline, the female agree and the object that the narrator prescribes to femininity, he lets that feminine essence flourish. By the end of the story, the narrator is forced to face that he cannot create a just masculine sto ry.As Raymond Benoit, a voice in Explicators wide serial of essays on Usher, points out, the narrator is forced to face the feminine through the edition of Mad Trist at the end of the story a mad story that parallels what is occurring in the house and reflects and even enables the awakening of the feminine side pattern to have been laid to appease in the philosophy and literature of the sagacity and by Roderick/narrator (80). The narrator cannot ignore the soused feminine influence in the house, much as he tries.Perhaps this is because the source of the feminine influence is sitting beside him. Throughout the story, Roderick appears as a romantic and an artist. He reads philander and gothic novels and is emotional to the point of hysteria at generation. Beverly Voloshin enters her theory in the series shared with Benoit and others on The Fall of the House of Usher in Explicator. Her theory follows the lines of Roderick being the feminine half of the Usher agree. Roderick i s associated with the abstract, atemporal, and ideal (14). These attributes are generally feminine in nature, gentle and imaginative.In a usually feminine mathematical function, Rodericks actions are often reactions to other characters, showing subordination. His madness is spurred by the supposed death of Madeline, an irrational and emotional reaction to an action of another character. Rodericks death, often attributed with the ultimate pedigree of the house itself, is a reaction to the return and death of Madeline. His death is a reaction to the death of a feminine character, which gives power to the feminine over the masculine. Poe is known to have unhealthy seraph types in his stories, but these seemingly weak female characters speak to his partiality for women.Poes life was filled with women who were taken away by illness, making them physically weak his mother, his cousin and wife. But the women in Poes life were often the source of his strength, making them spiritually an d often mentally strong. The bonk of physically weak, spiritually strong women in his life greatly influenced his portraiture of women in his stories and poetry Anabelle Lee comes to mind. Similarly, Madeline follows the guidelines for Poes memory of women. In a strange way, Poe often put these women on pedestals.Madelines presence is very rarely in the foreground of Poes short story, but the times when she does appear, it is her appearance that changes the mood of the scene. Madeline owns every scene in which she appears. Her actions are catalysts. The character is weak, but Poe puts her in a position of power beyond character Poe gives Madeline a position of power over the plot. While the ultimate picture of Madeline might be a slap in the face against feminists, her role in the story is large enough to create a strong female influence.Poe follows his own guidelines in the character of Madeline Usher. She fits his ideal for true looker. tail H. Timmerman aids lead the way tow ards viewing Madeline in this calorie-free by explaining Poes reasoning. He explains Poes drive towards creating beauty in his writing, a beauty that he believed could only be achieved through sadness (232). Because of this connection and his past with women, Poe comes to the conclusion that the most sad thing, and therefore the most splendiferous, is the death of a beautiful woman (232).Madeline, though pale and sickly, is one of these beautiful women. Her death, then, is a thing of beauty in Poes eyes. The concept is not a very enthusiastic one, nor is it useful in citing Poe as an advocate for women, but that he put emphasis on women is a tint in the right direction. From his idea that a beautiful womans death is indeed the most beautiful occurrence in nature, he freeze off the male characters in his stories to attention reclaim the feminine indoors his stories. The male counterparts to these tragic women are the main argument for Cythia Jordan.In her essay Poes Re-Vision The retrieval of the second base Story, Jordan argues that Roderick Usher and C. Auguste Dupin are male characters who attempt to add up to light the feminine or second story. While the narrator has ultimate control over the plot of The Fall of the House of Usher, Jordan points out times when Roderick tries to wrestle that control from him and reassert Madeline as a prominent figure in the story. The final scene of Usher is where Roderick gets that victory, Madman I tell you that she now stands without the door (130).Jordan explains that this marks a moment in which Roderick takes control of the narrative long enough to call the narrator out on his oppression and to bring Madeline out into the spotlight (11). Roderick proves again that he is not the male oppressor but is instead a supporter if not aspect of the feminine. The question becomes, then, wherefore would Roderick want to bring Madeline to the forefront? The sole reason being that she is his couple on is likely not eno ugh. The idea of them being two aspects of the same being, or two sides of the same face is more concrete.But consider that Roderick is an artist, not only placing him in a feminine role, which would be cause enough to help the feminine thrive, but as an artist he must meet that ultimate goal that Poe put forth for himself to create beauty. If Poes characters follow his own guidelines, then, Rodericks only way to express that which is most beautiful in the world is to bring his beautiful sisters death to the forefront of the story. Thus, in Rodericks moment of control over the plot, in revealing the second story of Madeline, he follows those rules of an artist so avidly produced by his own author.The end result is not just Poes ideal of beauty, it also gives voice to the silenced feminine inwardly the story both Madelines and possibly Rodericks own. The connection between Madeline and Roderick as parallel is an interesting part of their mixed and almost non-existent gender roles. It has been suggested that their family relationship is an incestuous affair, bringing together that mixed-gendered ambiguity into an even more scramble position. Voloshin and others regard the twin connection, Voloshin looking specifically at the dichotomies apparent in spite of appearance that connection. The Usher twins also represent the duality of culture and nature, or more precisely, that they correspond to many cultural constructions of masculine and feminine, which divide the genders along the axis of culture and nature (14). The fact that Poe decided to use twins pushes the idea that such dichotomies exist. Roderick, similar to Madeline, is afflicted with an ailment, one that is a ingrained and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy a mere nervous affection (118). This nervous condition is displayed throughout the story in his outbursts and personality shifts.It is suggested that the ailment, being a family curse, is close to if not the same as M adelines. Madeline, however, shows strength in that she did not succumb to the illness before the narrator arrives. Madeline is given credit for being the stronger of the two, a masculine trait. The duality does not fit what society would expect from gender roles. The male is the feminine and the female is the masculine. It has been suggested that Roderick and Madeline are the same person, or aspects of the same person. Hoeveler plays with this idea in her essay on the Abjected Woman. She discusses the idea that Madeline is in fact the feminine half of Roderick that has escaped to become an alter-ego (391). Not only would physical evidence within the text dispute that idea the fact that the narrator sees Madeline during a intercourse with Roderick but why, then, would Roderick assume so many feminine traits of his own? And why would Madeline seem to uphold those traits generally accepted as masculine? The rest of the essay is another key the idea of dualities in religion, the godd ess and the god. The duality returns to the twin idea, and the twin concept requires a semblance of balance.If Roderick is the feminine role, Madeline must step in to play the role of the masculine. Traditionally, in feminist readings, the masculine identity can be discovered by its subjugation and subordination of the feminine identity. Madeline is buried in the vault, making her attributeically subordinated, but in the end, it is she who buries Roderick with a low moaning cry, fell heavily upon the person of her brother, and in her godforsaken and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated (Poe 131).The first item of note is the fact that Rodericks agnomen is not mentioned once in his death scene. Roderick is placed in the peaceable part of the sentence, upon the person of her brother, rather than given an active death. His name is not mentioned, instead he is listed as the brother of Madeline. He is also noted as be ing a victim, a position often associated with the feminine. Here, Roderick is not only stripped of identity of his own, but is made the passive victim of a violent force against him. The idea of Madeline as a violent or at least controlling force over Roderick is used in the somewhat popular vampire theory.Lyle Kendall discusses this theory and cites examples from the text to help prove it. He suggests that Roderick asks the narrator to come to the house to aid him in the destruction of his oppressor, the vampire, Madeline (451). J. O. Bailey goes into more depth, citing the history and mythology behind the vampire theory. He, however, notes that both of the twins seem to exhibit traits of one who has been attacked by a vampire, but that Madeline was the one whose body is inhabited by a vampiric entity (Bailey 458).Vampires in stories have been male and female there is no prescription for the sex of these mythological creatures. The idea of the vampire, though, of one who comes and sucks the life out of others fits the mold for a control aspect. The masculine identity is the controlling identity, and if Madeline is indeed a vampire, then she becomes that controlling identity Madeline becomes the oppressor and Roderick the oppressed. Another supposedly masculine trait is the sense of structure and order.Robinson brings the dichotomy of order/disorder into play in his formalist reading of the short story in his essay Order and Sentience in The Fall of the House of Usher. Robinson writes, the progress of the story sees Usher, his house, and his sister Madeline changing from an organized to a disorganized state, until finally all sink together (69). Robinson also brings to light the notion that Madelines physical senses dim through the story while Ushers heighten (75). Roderick becomes more sensitive where his sister becomes less so.Their traits become intermingled, masculine and feminine twisting their positions to the opposite sex until finally it all comes back together into a union. The final union between the masculine and the feminine is the destruction of the house, according to Robinson, when the house and the story fall into a state of disorganization. The final scene in The Fall of the House of Usher seems to be a culmination of all that is feminine within the work. Roderick sits and listens to his favorite romantic story, Mad Trist, which brings the feminine back into the plot.During this reading, Roderick comes into a position to speak against the narrator, for the narrator, when he calls him a madman, and reveals Madeline standing outside the door. When Madeline appears for her final scene, her coup detat de grace, she is in her burial shroud with blood on her, a symbol of rebirth. The walking symbol of the feminine falls upon Usher, who without a fight, falls to the ground, and the two die. The narrator flees the fall of the house of Usher, and watches as the house behind him is mysteriously destroyed.The story comes toge ther, finally, with a seeming grand finale of femininity. Symbols, romanticism, disorganization, all of those ideals that have been attributed to feminism culminate. But looking back once again on Rodericks death, there is the passivity. Madeline, in the midst of this fantastic moment of feminine symbolism, takes on the role of a masculine identity, pressing Roderick beneath her and putting him into a passive state. Are the symbols enough for this story to triumph over masculine influence?Or has the narrator put his foot down on the final scene to ensure that some semblance of masculine oppressiveness remained in the story? Regardless of masculine or feminine traits, at the end of the story, as the world of the narrator collapses into romantic idealism, it is the woman, the female half of the Usher family, that finally oppresses the man. Madeline triumphs, but only when put into a masculine gender role. Leo Spitzer, author of A Reinterpretation of The Fall of the House of Usher, als o notes the near necessity for the two to die as one.He first shines light on the importance of Madeline, citing her as a deuteragonist and pointing out the eerie timing of her appearances, and he goes on to say that Roderick and Madeline, twins arrange to each other by incestuous love, suffering separately but dying together, represent the male and the female principle in that decaying family whose members, by the law of sterility and destruction which rules them, must exterminate each other (352). They do destroy one another at the end, leaving the narrator to escape.And, as Jordan points out, the narrator gets the last word, for his final act of sentencing is to dispatch Madeline and her too-familiar twin into the silent tarn, out of mind and out of language one last time (12). Despite this triumphant climax for Madeline and Roderick, the narrator clings tightly to his story. The narrator, or storyteller, in The Fall of the House of Usher fights for control over the characters w ithin the story, both female and feminine. He takes on, ultimately, the role of masculinity.Whether, within the house, Madeline was oppressed or Roderick was matters very little their aspects were in sync with on another and form to come together eventually. But their ultimate victory and freedom from the masculine narrator is achieved only in their deaths, and the storyteller condemns the last vestiges of the feminine. In this story at least, the victory of femininity is short-lived and ultimately futile. Works Cited Bailey, J. O. What Happens in the Fall of the House of Usher? American Literature A ledger of literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 35. (1964) 445-66. Benoit, Raymond. Poes the Fall of the House of Usher. Explicator 58. 2 (2000) 79-81. Hoeveler, Diane Long. The Hidden God and the Abjected Woman in the Fall of the House of Usher. Studies in lilliputian Fiction 29. 3 (1992) 385-95. Jordan, Cynthia S. Poes Re-Vision The Recovery of the Second Story. America n Literature A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 59. 1 (1987) 1-19. Kendall, Lyle H. ,Jr. The Vampire motif in the Fall of the House of Usher. College English 24. 6 (1963) 450-3. May, Leila S. Sympathies of a Scarcely Intelligible Nature The Brother-Sister Bond in Poes Fall of the House of Usher. Studies in Short Fiction 30. 3 (1993) 387-96. Robinson, E. Arthur. Order and Sentience in the Fall of the House of Usher. PMLA 76. 1 (1961) 68-81. . Spitzer, Leo. A Reinterpretation of the Fall of the House of Usher. Comparative Literature 4. 4 (1952) 351-63. . Timmerman, John H. House of Mirrors Edgar Allan Poes the Fall of the House of Usher. Papers on Language and Literature A Journal for Scholars and Critics of Language and Literature 39. (2003) 227-44. Voloshin, Beverly R. Poes the Fall of the House of Usher. Explicator 46. 3 (1988) 13-5. Works cite Obuchowski, Peter. Unity of Effect in Poes the Fall of the House of Usher. Studies in Short Fiction 12 (19 75) 407-12. . Peeples, Scott. Poes Constructiveness and the Fall of the House of Usher. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge, England Cambridge UP, 2002. 178-190. Stein, William Bysshe. The Twin Motif in the Fall of the House of Usher. Modern Language Notes 75. 2 (1960) 109-11. .