dissociative identity in: the fall of the house of usher by: trevor shields

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DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

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Page 1: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL

OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

Page 2: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

WHAT IS DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER?

-Ever seen the movie Fight Club? Or The Secret Window? Yeah that’s it.

-Basically, an aspect of your life sucks so bad that instead of accepting it, your psyche splits.

Page 3: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

SO WHAT DOES D.I.D. HAVE TO DO WITH THE HOUSE OF USHER?

• I propose that there is evidence of two cases of D.I.D. within the text.

• Case #1: Roderick and The Narrator are the same guy.

• Case #2: Roderick, Madeline, The Narrator are the same person

Page 4: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR)

• “What was it--I paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?”

• “ It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression”

• Narrator upon first encountering the Usher House

• Rational

• Dissecting

• Provoked

• Need to validate

• Why Possibilities?

Page 5: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR)• “I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a

black and lurid tarn […] and gazed down--but with a shudder even more thrilling than before--upon the remodeled and inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows”

• “Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting.”

• “distant part of the country-”

• “Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend.”

• Image of reflection i.e. two images of 1 subject

• Many years and a country separate the two.

• Intimate at boyhood yet little was known?

Page 6: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR)

Page 7: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR)• “While the objects around me […] were but

matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy--while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this--I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up.

• “Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!”

• Interior is strange, but known

• Upon meeting Roderick, the Narrator contradicts himself.

Page 8: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR)

• “from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name”

• “the dwelling which he tenanted, and from which, for many years, he had never ventured forth”

• “ancient race”

• “Incestuous and inadmissible passion”

• “a tenderly beloved sister; his sole companion for long years-his last and only relative on earth.”

• “lady Madeline”

• Patrimony

• Solitude

• Pressure to procreate and continue the family name

• Quixotic reference

Page 9: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

WAIT WHAT?

• Yeah that’s right, incest! An “inadmissible passion” to sleep with your sister seems a legit reason to want to split identities to me.

• But wait that isn’t even the craziest part….

• ENTER CASE TWO!

Page 10: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY)

• “Her figure, her air, her features-all, in their very minutest development were those […] of the Roderick Usher who sat beside me.”

• “A feeling of stupor oppressed me”

• “he had buried his face in his hands”

• “trickled many passionate tears.”

• “For several day ensuing, her name was unmentioned”

• Exactly Roderick’s duplicate in female form

• Narrator feels oppressed? Why?

• And Rod, why so many tears?

• Wait who is dying?

Page 11: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY)

• “the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.”

• “a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit”

• “our books”

• “the lady Madeline was no more”

• “The exact similitude between brother and sister here again startled and confounded me.”

• Intimacy of spirits btwn Usher and Roderick in absence of Lady M.

• Our?

• Death!

• More similarity

Page 12: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY)• “His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations

were neglected or forgotten.”

• “The pallor of [Roderick’s] countenance had assumed, […] a more ghastly hue-but the luminescence of his eye had utterly gone out.” vs “gradual wasting away [of Madeline]”

• “I beheld [Roderick] gazing upon vacancy for long hours” vs “[Madeline’s] transient affections of a partially cataleptical character.”

• “I [the Narrator] felt creeping upon me , by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his [Roderick’s] own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.”

• “nervousness [Narrator]” vs “nervous agitation [Rod]”

• “ an instinctive spirit prompted me to certain low-indefinite sounds” vs “acuteness of senses”

• Roderick dilutes

• Begins to look/act like Lady M.

• Narrator begins to adopt Rod’s maladies

• ALL IDENTITIES TO YOUR POSTS! Its assimilation time!

Page 13: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY)

• “Mad Trist”

• “I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin.”

• “Madman!”

• “[Madeline] fell heavily inward on the person of her brother”

• “I fled aghast.”

• “Trist”= OE “Tryst” which means encounter, ergo “Mad Encounter”

• Hollow b/c nobodies in it

• Madman! = Denial: Last ditch effort of conflicting personalities

• Here’s Maddy! Oh and Rod and the Narrator.

• Only the Narrator can leave. Note that “I fled” signals singularity of person.

Page 14: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY)

Page 15: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY)

• “the once barley-descernable fissure […] rapidly widened”

• “there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind”

• the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight--my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder--there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters--and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher".

• Fissure=Seperation of Insanity and Reason: also female/male identities.

• Whirlwind= tumult of confrontation and re-cohesion of multiple identities into one

• Satelite= Reason

• No house, only 1 person/ identity left

• The tarn= the calm of reason and sanity

Page 16: DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

CONCLUSION AND QUESTIONS

• What are the significances of the three identities?

• If this is in fact a case of D.I.D., who is the real, single, character left standing?

• In contrast, what if the narrator is insane and never left gazing at his reflection in the tarn?