The Mind in The Fall of the House of Usher - Essay Example

of The Mind in “The Fall of the House of Usher” “The Fall of the House of Usher” is one of the most famous of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. Like many of his other short stories, this on too focuses on the supernatural and the effects of disturbances on the human mind. He also explores the aspect of the human mind through not only the character of Roderick Usher but also that of the narrator. This paper shall explore the theme of the importance of the mental disturbance that was instrumental in creating the situation that has most often been looked upon and termed as horror. This essay shall seek to reinterpret the stories of Poe as more than just stories of horror. They were as in the case of the story under discussion, subtle exploration of the human psyche and the effects of the environment on this mind. The characters of the narrator and Roderick Usher shall come in for close analysis in this essay. One of the most important characters in the story is that of the House of Usher, that is, the building. This is important as there is a continuance of a gothic tradition in this which looks at the effects of architecture on the human mind. This can be seen in the effects that it produces on the mind of the narrator at the beginning of the story when he arrives at the building. The building provides the aspect of terror that pervades the entire story. While this is important, one also needs to look at the different aspects of the European tradition that this technique follows. The gothic tradition in literature was used mostly in stories that dealt with monsters and horror where the building more often than not provided a setting for the tale to unfold. In a similar fashion, the building of the house of Usher provides a setting but also manifests physical changes within itself when the secret of the family is revealed to the narrator who is an outsider. Julia Linnarz analyzes this and says how the character of Roderick Usher is afraid of his own house. The terror that emanates from the house can be seen also from the fact that the first impression of horror that meets the reader and the narrator come from the building that seems to ooze a certain kind of mysterious aura of fear. This can be seen from Poe’s very description of the house- 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? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered” (Poe 76). The narrator is not only an outsider, he is also an agent of rationality that is present within what appears like a madhouse. His worldview is thus challenged and rejected through the events that transpire in the House of Usher. These events most often do not have a rational basis. The reader accepts them as consequences of the functioning of the forces of the supernatural. These are then beyond the control of man, something that would have been very difficult for Poe’s nineteenth century American to understand. The supernatural becomes Poe’s method of telling the reader that the narrator is not under control of the situation that he finds himself in and faced with the enormity of the task at hand, all that he can do is to flee “aghast” (95). The rejection of a rational order can be seen in other works of Poe as well. In this story, however, the rational is under severe pressure to admit of another world order that presents the impossibility of understanding through rational means (Muller 4). The force of this rejection fails to sink into the narrator who watches in horror as the House of Usher falls into ruins from a single crack. He is made aware of this rejection when he hears the voices that he reads in a story in reality. The fictional then transforms into the real. This is again Poe’s attempt at making a transition from the fictional into the real and demonstrating to the reader how the two can coincide. The fictional then has the potential to transform what is considered to be the ‘real’. Poe transcends many of the boundaries that were set for writers of the nineteenth century, risking being called a writer of silly gothic tales. This is not true as one may gather from the close affinity between the character of Roderick Usher and the House of Usher. Poe constantly reminds his readers of this connection, something that makes them both appear almost the same- …the quaint and equivocal appellation of the ‘House of Usher’- an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion (Poe 78). The similarity then points to the fact that the entire twisted cold building becomes a symbol of the mind of the character of Roderick Usher. Towards the beginning of the story, the contents of this mind are unknown to the rest of the world and the building presents a mere crack. By the end of the story, an outsider, the narrator, is aware of a large part of the secrets that are harbored by the mind of Roderick Usher. This is more than centuries of secrecy and morbidity can bear and there is a mental breakdown symbolized by the ruin of the House of Usher. The character of Lady Madeline is a part of this point of the narrative as a ghostly presence. The union of the twins in an embrace of incest or necrophilia as critics over the years have interpreted it can also be seen as a final union of the family and the mansion literally. This union is then the signal for the end of the line as it is viewed by another person, one who is not a part of the family. This union is not criticized by Poe. The forces that create such changes in the mind of man have either not been explored or are completely out of the control of man as long as he pursues a rational approach to understanding such events, according to Poe. It is not difficult to ascertain which character Poe’s sympathies lie with. The character of Roderick Usher is the one with whom on may align the persona of Poe’s protagonist that finds in other stories of his and his poetry. Such an alignment is in tune with the theme of the exploration of the human mind that Poe seeks to effect in many of his stories. The breakdown of the mind of Roderick Usher is a slow and torturous process, one that he brings upon himself through constant solitude. Poe’s story is also a comment on Usher’s inability to communicate with anyone. He is presented as the abstracted mind that wastes away when the other half of the binary, the body as the character of Lady Madeline is removed from his life. This mind is then presented as a disturbed one that fails to align itself with a concrete space-time continuum. Another significant aspect of the story is the conspicuous absence of Lady Madeline from the narrative as anything but a source of horror. One can thus, safely say that Poe’s assessment of the human mind involves but an assessment of the mind of a man but not that of a woman. The presence of Lady Madeline is obliterated from the narrative even though it is more than probable that she is the oppressed character in the story. The horror then becomes a means through which the woman is further marginalized within the story. It also can be argued that ascribing the role of the source of horror to the woman in the story is Poe’s own method of sublimating the misogyny that he harbors within his own mind. There is then a possibility of unearthing intentions of the author that even the author himself may not have been aware of through the methods of psychoanalysis. This is one of the most exciting ways in which one can conduct an analysis of the works of Poe. Poe’s works have always attracted the attention of readers of various cultures. The manners in which he appeals to readers from different periods of time reveal how his fiction is rich in interpretative possibilities. A reading of “The Fall of the House of Usher” through methods of psychological and psychoanalytical criticism only proves the relevance of his stories to modern times. He can then be read in conjunction with authors of the twentieth and twenty first centuries who have sought to explore the conditions of the mind. Such fictional representations can contribute greatly to one’s understanding of the human mind. Works Cited Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Selected Tales. New York: Penguin, 2000. Print. Muller, Bianca. The Fallen Narrator in 'The Fall of the House of Usher'. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. Linnarz, Julia. An Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's 'the Fall of the House of Usher' and Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle and ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ in relation to Tzvetan Todorov’s definition of the fantastic. Web. 1 Nov. 2012. Read More