The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe - Essay Example

The portrayal of family in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe are defined by various concepts and ideologies. The family is one which is first regarded as a unit which stays together and which has a sense of love and fellowship toward each other. Poe contrasts this with the concept that family always leads to loss and the incapability of holding onto the family unit. The presentation that Poe gives about the family ultimately leads to the idea of loss and death of the family. The loss and death of the family is one that Poe describes not only with death, but also how this leads to bondage. Poe regards the family unit as one that binds individuals and oppresses them from being free of a natural life and instead leads to the unit of family dying with one member. The representation of loss and the family is first seen in The Fall of the House of Usher. The House of Usher is one which Poe introduces as an old family home which he is designated to stay in. The fall is one which is attributed specifically to the loss of family and the fall of those who were in the home. It is the family that brings the “mansion of gloom” (Poe, 2) to the home and which ruins the home so it can never be recovered. This begins with the death of Madeline, the mother of the home. It is revealed that on her death, she is buried in the home and a tomb is left for her specifically out of respect for the home. The concept of keeping Madeline in the home as a tribute to love is one that begins with the fall and death of the home and which leads to the eventual haunting that is within the home by Madeline’s ghost. This representation shows that it is the concept of love, as opposed to practicality, that leads to the fall of the home, specifically which comes from the family ideologies. The representation of family in The Fall of the House of Usher continues with the way in which this affects Usher and his eventual despair. The narrator states that before the death of Madeline, Usher was normal. However, over time, the changes in the home had led him to a mental disease which he couldn’t recover from. This has led him to misery and to his eventual death and loss, brought specifically by the household. “To an anomalous of terror I found him a bounden slave. ‘I shall perish,’ said he, ‘I must perish in this deplorable folly” (5). This is one of several examples that show how the family brought on the slavery of the family and led to the death, fear and disregard because of the bond that was created from love. The representation that Poe brings then leads one to believe that family can only bring distress and loss. The same representation of family based on oppression, slavery and loss is also seen in The Cask of Amontillado. The main representation comes through Fortunato and the one weakness that is revealed through the story. The weakness is one that is soon revealed as the family and the loss of the family. This begins with Fortunato noting the great families and how they are always lost. “ ‘These vaults,’ he said, ‘are extensive.’ ‘The Montessors,’ I replied, ‘were a great and numerous family.’” (8). The concept that the Montessors were a great family, followed by the skeletons and caskets that are then described shows how the family is one that is lost and eventually leads to death. The vaults further this as a representation of bondage in the family that eventually kills. The concept of family in both stories is one that is defined by oppression and bondage. The death and morbidity of one family member is one that resonates within the entire family unit and kills off all that are in the family. Poe describes this through the mental illness of Usher as well as the bondage, weakness and death of Fortunato, specifically because of his family line. The surrounding death that is in both stories comes specifically because of family ties and links that cause the main characters to end their own lives because of the ties that are in the family and which have died. The Gothic element that Poe uses in The Pit and the Pendulum, The Cask of Amontillado and The Masque of the Red Death are used to describe the environment. The Gothic becomes one that is able to create concepts of fear, death and bondage that are in each of the stories. As the environment is created, Poe is easily able to move the reader into concepts of darkness that are in each of the stories. The atmosphere then enhances the stories and the main plot line that Poe is describing to create a different understanding with the reader. The Gothic element becomes a secondary concept used to enhance the environment and to create a specific sense of imagery to enhance ideas of fear and death with the reader. The Pit and the Pendulum is the first story which shows the Gothic element. The environment begins with the Gothic element, specifically as the narrator is in a room that is Gothic in nature and which creates a sense of horror and death around him. The horror that the narrator is in is one which is represented with the Gothic elements in the room, all which are a reflection of the death which the narrator believes is occurring. “I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which enwrapped the walls of my apartment” (11). This is followed by the Gothic elements of candles which turn from angels to horror and other concepts in the apartment which are Gothic in nature and which turn into a sense of death and fear. The Gothic is then further described with Toledo, a dungeon which is Gothic in nature. Defining this element as one which holds death, horror and fear as well as being Gothic in nature with stone walls, chambers and floors, then adds into the atmosphere of horror that creates the story. The same element of the Gothic and the relation to horror is read in The Cask of Amontillado. The casks which are described through the story are not in a regular area for death, but instead are underneath the main city in a dungeon area where a family is buried. These are described as Gothic and create the same sense of fear that is a part of the Gothic. The Gothic then relates directly to Fortunato’s weakness and the death that is held beneath the city walls, specifically because of the nitre that killed the family and which is still beneath where the casks are. As Fortunato and the narrator go deeper to the river bed, the environment becomes more Gothic and represents the idea of the dead and of horror. “We continued our route in search of Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame” (7). The making of this atmosphere is then followed by a description of the crypt as well as the awakening of the horrors that are underground and from the Gothic environment. The same sense of horror is noted in The Masque of the Red Death. The Gothic area and environment that the narrator points out is one that is surrounding the Prince Prospero and the massacre that occurred in a specific courtyard. The narrator describes the different chambers and the windows which looked out at the massacre as it was occurring at the beginning. The narrator uses this not only to describe the main character of the area, but also uses descriptions that combine the Gothic elements with an atmosphere that is filled with horror. “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds….The panes here were scarlet – a deep blood color” (15). This description is one that is both Gothic in nature and which describes elements of death and horror as the representation of black and red blood color are both a part of death that Poe uses in the stories. The Gothic then becomes an element which creates a sense of life or death, specifically because of the atmosphere, all which continues to be defined by the image of Prince Prospero and the Gothic environment that related to the red death from the specific room. The stories that are represented by Poe combine a specific atmosphere and sense of scenery that relates specifically to ideas of death, horror and fear. The Gothic element is added in with the darker environment that is portrayed. By doing this, Poe is able to create an environment that is open to ideas of horror. The focus on the underground, colors of red and black as well as the portrayal of the chambers and coffins that were common elements of the Gothic add into the idea of the atmosphere to naturally create an element of fear and horror with the reader as the main plots are revealed. Works Cited Poe, Edgar Allen. Complete Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Doubleday, 1984. Read More