Edgar Allan Poe’s

“Fall of the House of Usher”

Guided Story NotesCobb 2011

Edgar (Allan) Poe

(c. 1809-1849)Personal History:

*abandoned by father as an infant; mother died of tuberculosis when Poe was 3yrs old

*Taken in by the Allans but did not get along with Mr. Allan; Mrs. Allan died of tuberculosis, as well

*18yrs old—Poe is thrown out of college for gambling

*Formed a new family with his aunt, and young cousin, Virginia Clemm

*Married Virginia (she was half his age—13yrs old), but she died 2yrs later (seeing a pattern here?)

*Poe struggled to support his family with a series of literary magazine jobs, where he received scathing reviews

*His life matched the Romantic ideal of the starving artist who suffered for the purity of his art

“One of literature’

s most brilliant,

but erratic, stars.”

His Literature: *Success: horror, science fiction, detective stories

*Themes: madness, untimely death, and obsession

*Common Characters: Deranged narrators, young beautiful (dead) women, etc., all which mirrored his personal life

*Careful use of language, creation of a single, calculated effect, championed rigorous structure

Poe’s Works Inspire Others

• “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” laid the foundation for the modern detective story

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was inspired to write his series of detective adventures, Sherlock Holmes

Poe’s Works Inspire Others (part two)

• Russian novelist Feodor Dostoevsky explored the criminal mind as a result of Poe’s influence

• Today, Stephen King accredits Poe with inspiring portions of his book (turned-into-movie) The Shining

• The Baltimore Ravens have three mascots: Edgar, Allan and Poe

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

• (p. 276) the narrator (who we realize has no name) is a character who claims to provide an objective view, but whose rationality becomes suspect during the course of the tale

• He says, “I feel a creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own [Usher's] fantastic yet impressive superstitions.”

• How would the story change if we read it from Roderick Usher’s point of view? What would you see?

Point of View: the vantage point from which the writer tells a story

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

• Poe uses words like dull, dark, soundless, autumn, oppressively, dreary, evening, gloom, unredeemed dreariness, shadowy fancies, ghastly tree stems, vacant and eyelike windows to demonstrate atmosphere

• (p. 262, 280-281) a rotting mansion, mysterious illnesses, strange sounds at night, a person buried alive; all to create a sense of dread and menace

Atmosphere: the mood or feeling created in a piece of writing

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

• The narrator reads the parody of Sir Ethelred to Roderick • (p. 276) Poe is parodying the excesses of romances– popular

tales of knights who undertake adventures, perform heroic deeds and eventually win a virtuous lady

• How is Sir Ethelred not all a medieval knight should be?– He requires wine for courage and strength– He is intimidated by a stubborn hermit– He confronts the hermit only to escape the bad weather

Parody: a work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer’s style

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

• Poe uses the following symbols in this story and other connections: – The vacant, eye-like windows of the house---Roderick’s lack

of sensory feeling or his growing madness– The gloomy, decaying house---the condition of the

family/Roderick’s mind– Roderick’s painting of a vault/tunnel---Madeline’s tomb – The fissure, or crack, that runs through the middle of the

house----the break in Roderick’s mind– The frequent and violent alterations in the wind during the

storm---the split in Roderick’s psyche– Roderick’s guitar---his inner turmoil or wild, creative energies

Symbol: a concrete object, a person, a place or an action that works on at least two levels: it functions as itself and suggests a wider meaning

Roderick Usher (above)

And

The House of Usher (right)

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

There are two instances of doubling in this story: Roderickhouse-local peasants use the name “The House of Usher” to mean both the

family, and the mansion-the house is mirrored in the ‘lurid tarn’ (dark lake) outside: the

narrator gazes into it hoping to escape the oppressive effect of the house

Doubling: heroes and heroines are hard to distinguish from one another and often have the same physical and mental traits of Poe himself

Madeline and Roderick Usher

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

RoderickMadeline-What descriptions does the narrator give of their shared

appearances? **Doubling is common in Romantic literature and essential to

Gothic fiction, where criminals resemble victims**

Doubling: heroes and heroines are hard to distinguish from one another and often have the same physical and mental traits of Poe himself

After Reading….• What happens to:• Madeline?• Roderick?• The house? • Where does the narrator

go? • Reflections? Comments?

This plaque marks the approximate location where

Edgar Poe was born in Boston.

Edgar Allan Poe is buried in Baltimore, Maryland

Birth Death