Idea of a Wal between Human Beings and Others - Admission/Application Essay Example

In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick Usher is depicted as a wealthy man, living in a huge mansion, with high walls. These high walls separate Roderick from his neighbors, who are envious of him and his family (VanSpanckeren, p.93). Moreover, we note that Roderick is, and has been excessive, and reserved since childhood having grown up around temperamental adults. Roderick’s reserved nature discouraged friendship, thus when he is taken ill; nobody was around to help him. We note that the symbolic wall Roderick built around himself served to protect him from outsiders such as the temperamental adults in his childhood.  Furthermore, we note that the idea of Roderick separating himself from his sister by burying her alive in a tomb also illustrates his desire for solitude.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter further portrays the various kinds of walls put up by people in the community to distance themselves from the rest. Hester is accused of adultery and is mandated to wear the letter A on her gowns. The letter symbolizes her moral condition, and acceptance of the title put on her by the community. However, Hester’s adulterous behavior leads to her imprisonment; the aspect of her being hidden away behind the walls of a prison symbolizes her ex-communication from the community and the contempt felt towards her. We also note that Dimmesdale’s guilty conscience for being Hester’s accomplice leads to his withdrawal from society. He puts up a symbolic wall that shields him from others, but this does not diminish his guilt so he opts to confess. Ishmael in Mobi-Dick regards himself as an outsider as he symbolically refers to himself as an orphan. He alienates himself from his fellow mankind when he goes to sea. Ahab, on the other hand, refers to his wife as a “girl-wife” and his son by these titles symbolizing the symbolic wall between him and his family as most of his life is spent at sea (VanSpanckeren, p.75).