Vampirism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

In the story, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, there are many mysterious happenings that go on throughout the story between the characters Roderick Usher and the narrator. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe uses themes such as madness and insanity to connect the house back to Roderick Usher. In the “Fall of The House of Usher”, the narrator goes through many different experiences when arriving to the house. The narrator’s experiences start out as almost unnoticeable in the beginning, turn into bigger ones right before his eyes, and end up becoming problems that cause deterioration of the mind and the house before the narrator even decides to do anything helpful for Roderick and his mental illness. In “The Fall of The

Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” suggests that Roderick Usher and Madeline Usher are vampires that have an incestuous relationship with each other. The unnamed narrator reveals he has received a letter from Roderick Usher—the protagonist— who has been afflicted with an “acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder” that oppresses him. The narrator is visiting Usher’s mansion upon his request to see his friend to help “[alleviate] his malady.” Indeed, Usher appears to be an ill man when the narrator visits him. Usher seems to suffer from an “acuteness of the senses,” which means he has a hyper-sensitivity to light, sound, and taste. The fact that Usher is hyper-sensitive to light, sound and taste suggests that he is a vampire. The undead

Fear is among one of the most universal human emotions that everyone is interconnected at one point or another during their lifetime. In the gothic stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “House Taken Over” written by Edgar Allan Poe and Julio Cortazar respectively. Edgar Allen Poe writes about how the character Mr. Usher, who because of his mental illness and delusions, cannot come to terms with his reality. Cortazar writes about the relationship between a brother and sister who have normal everyday lives and have strange and odd nightmare that haunts them. The

Violent or macabre incidents are often used in American Gothic Literature to present imposing, though quite unsettling, portraits of the human experience by way of terror. Poe accomplishes this in “The Fall of the House of Usher” at what time Madeline Usher reappears at the end of the story, covered in blood and kills Roderick Usher. “There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold—then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to

“The Fall of the House of Usher,” is a horror classic written by Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most well-known writers of all time. Conversion through Madeline, from seemingly normal, but gravely sick sister of Roderick Usher, to ghostly, and blood covered makes the story much more chilling. For instance, we hear about Madeline for the first time in paragraph 13 and 14 where Roderick explains how Madeline has fallen ill with catalepsy and her death would leave him being the last of the Usher family. Finally, we see Madeline attack Roderick out of the blue, “For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold,-- then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent

In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick Usher sends out a letter inviting an old childhood friend over. When his friend arrived he noticed how strange things were between the Ushers. All of Roderick’s senses were affected and Madeline was Cataleptic. The Ushers are Vampires.

Roderick has the vampire’s symptoms which are heightened senses and being overwhelmingly emotional and the looks of a vampire which are pale skin, long hair, and pale lips. Even with all this evidence, people still believe the Ushers aren’t vampires. As stated in the first paragraph, Poe never states if the Ushers have an actual illness or if they are vampires, but Poe leaves many clues hinting to us readers that the Ushers are vampires. The arguments between these choices may interest individuals in vampires as well. With all the evidence included in this essay, it is evident that the Ushers are

Edgar Allen Poe is a critic of short stories and poetry, and often puts his own theories into his writing. Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” falls into this category in the idea of the single effect. The short story starts with the Narrator going to visit his old friend, Roderick Usher because of a letter Roderick writes to him. The Narrator goes to the house and spends time with Usher, but all starts to go array when Roderick thinks his sister is dead and buries her. She comes out of her tomb and jumps at Usher and the House of Usher falls and Roderick dies. Poe argues that all short stories should have a single effect; a feeling the author should make the reader feel. The single effect of “The Fall of the House of Usher” is terror. Poe creates the single effect of terror through the settings, characters, and elements of the story. He does this through the setting of Usher’s room and Madeline’s tomb; through the characters of Roderick and Madeline Usher; and through the element of the Haunted Palace.

The Usher mansion is slowly deteriorating, just like Roderick Usher himself. The “sombre tapestries,” “ebon blackness,” and “phantasmagoric armorial trophies” did not just start showing in the house; these elements have had time to develop and is now represented as a never ending darkness, which is just like Roderick Usher’s mental illness. Not only does Poe create an image of the house, he also uses lucid details describing the Usher’s mansion and the rooms inside the home to show that Roderick’s mental illness has physically and mentally trapped him. Roderick is a gloomy and mysterious character who looks as if he is dead. Poe describes Roderick’s appearance as one to not easily be forgotten (Poe 152). In Roderick’s mind, he feels as if he has no escape from this illness, which terrifies him. His biggest fear is fear himself. The evil that has overcame his body will take a toll on his life and he is aware of it because he says “I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed no abhorrence of danger, except in it absolute effect-in terror” (Poe 153). As described in the story, the Usher house has rooms that create a somber life and with this creation, Poe is able to portray the kind of life that Roderick Usher is living and will live. Not only is this technique used in “The Fall of the House of

In the text “The Fall of the House of Usher” there are supernatural events throughout the short story. From the rapidly decaying house that is quite literally connected to the main character Roderick Usher, to the ghost of Roderick's twin sister Madeline. “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. This line gives us a hint from the title toward the supernatural link between the physical house collapsing and the metaphorical “fall” of the Usher Family. I believe Edgar Poe did this to evoke an uncanny feeling in the reader and to add to the sublime of the short story. This link between living and inanimate gives the story an extra gothic element. “There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold -- then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.” The supernatural element of Madeline “coming back from the dead” or being a ghost creates conflict within the plot and therefore leads to the inevitable fall of the Usher Family. I believe this ghostly figure struck fear into the reader creating a suspenseful follow up, allowing the imagination to take off and picture this supernatural occurrence. This was never an explained supernatural event. It was left up to the reader's imagination and their assumption as to what is real and what is a figment of the characters imagination. “There was a long and

The Fall of the House of Usher is a story “of sickness, madness, incest, and the danger of unrestrained creativity. This is among Poe's most popular and critically-examined horror stories” (Gordon). For example if you were to close your eyes while someone was reading the story you would see the house “decaying” in your imagination (Poe). From the start of the story the narrator’s strange “insufferable gloom” is introduced. He notes the darkness of his surrounding (Gordon). The stories are very deeply described and felt.

Another theme that Poe explores in The Fall Of The House Of Usher is fear. It is fear that drives the story, fear that traps the narrator, and eventually fear that kills Roderick Usher. Poe foreshadows the paradox of Roderick’s fear early in the story: “There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition…is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis.” Roderick Usher is quoted as saying “I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect--in terror." This means that he is not afraid of death, but of fear itself. And it is this fear of fear that eventually leads to his death, when Madeline ‘returns from the dead’ and scares him to death.

In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick Usher sends out a letter to an old friend from college and requests for him to visit Roderick Usher because he was suffering from health issues. The narrator feels a sense dreary as he arrives at Roderick Usher's home. Roderick Usher is a very ill man who lives isolated in an old creepy house with his sister in a place isolated from civilization and when the narrator met Roderick, and he describes Roderick Usher in a very distinct way from regular people; he sees that Roderick Usher has physical actions and characteristics of a vampire. Roderick Usher is a vampire because the location of Usher’s home is located in a creepy place, which is isolated from the rest of the community.

Edgar Allan Poe used fear to attract his readers into his gothic world. Poe realized that fear intrigues as well as frightens, and sew it as a perfect motif for many of his stories, particularly The Fall of the House of Usher. Poe emphasized the mysterious, desolate, and gloomy surroundings throughout the story to set up the fear that got the reader involved. Then he extended the fear to the characters in order to reveal the importance of facing and overcoming fear. Poe suggested in the story that the denial of fears can lead to madness and insanity. This has clearly shown through the weakening of Roderick Usher's mind and the resulting impact on the narrator of the story.

Although it may seem unbelievable that the twins are both supernatural, Roderick’s illness is “a family evil … [and] [i]t displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations” (Poe), meaning that the two share a common evil influence and undergoes new qualities. To Roderick, these new qualities made him more sensitive and irritated. He is “tortured by even a faint light”, similarly to the vampiric tales of burning when in contact with light, and “suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses” (Poe). Since vampires are supernatural beings, it is not surprising that Roderick experiences these heightened