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1、“The Fall of the House of Usher”Edgar Allan Poe1839“The Fall of the House of Usher”The gothic context of the taleThe doubling motif of the taleThe function of setting in the taleThe structural unity of the taleThe Gothic literary traditionBegun in eighteenth century EnglandNovelistsHorace WalpoleAnn
2、 RadcliffeMatthew “Monk” LewisPopular form in British literary journalsImported into American short story - 19th centuryKey ingredient was sensationalism Gothic Architecture in AmericaStarted in US about 1840Steeply pitched roofsPointed arch windowsElaborate trim around roof edgesHigh dormersLancet
3、windowsPoes “house of Usher” looks more like a medieval castle or English cathedral in Gothic styleThe house might look something like this (from a photograph by Simon Marsden in his Visions of Poe)Elements of Gothic WritingEmphasis on settingExterior: landscapeInterior: housesCastle-like architectu
4、reCharacters are brooding, secretiveBuried family secretsLong history of family tied to placeThe Doubling MotifIn literary criticism, this is called a “doppelganger,” from the German for “double-goer”Examples are:Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)The Secret Sharer (Joseph Conrad)What f
5、unction does the doppelganger motif serve?Represents the dual nature of manIn Poe, one side of man is reason, or the mindThe other is emotion, or the bodyRoderick and Madeleine are genetically twins, but psychologically they are also doubles.Who Represents What?RoderickAn artist figure (509)Nervous
6、agitation (509)Lives in dark upstairs apartment (511)Cadaverous complexion (511)“want of moral energy” (511)“excessive nervous agitation” (511-12)Rodericks mental condition is affected by his environment“He was enchanted by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenante
7、d . . . An effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.” (512)Here, “physique” refers to something physicalAnd “morale” refers to something mental Roderick is all mindmind
8、 in a weak bodyHe represents in one way the life of the isolated artistPaintingsReadingGuitar playingMadeleineIllness has debilitated herAll descriptions focus on the bodybody“gradual wasting away of the person” (513)Roderick and the narrator screw down the lid of her coffin (518)She returns from th
9、e tomb to reclaim her twin brother, her “double”“the huge antique panelsthrew back” (521)She “fell heavily inward uponher brother andbore him to the floor a corpse”What is Poes point?Poe addresses the dual and conflicted nature of the SelfMind and body are at war with each other in each of usWe try
10、to repress one side and live without itBut we cannot achieve a harmonious existence in this wayThe Function of Setting - ExteriorThe “house of Usher” has two meanings1.The physical dwelling2.The family line, or lineage1.“the entire family lay in the direct line of descent”The house is also a type of
11、 character in the storyLike the family, it is of “an excessive antiquity” (510)The landscape is overgrown and raggedOn the front down the middle is “a barely perceptible fissure” going in “a zigzag direction” (510)Interior SettingGothic architecture (511)“windows were long, narrow and pointed”“feebl
12、e gleams of encrimsoned light”“dark draperies”“atmosphere of sorrow”Roderick lives upstairs (mind)Madeleine is entombed below ground (body)Structure and UnityPoe creates texts within texts1.“The Haunted Palace” (poem) reflects the Usher family life in the house (515)2.“The Mad Trist” (story) paralle
13、ls Madeleines return from the grave3.The storm outside is analogous to the turmoil inside the characters in the house4.The book titles in Rodericks library are symbolic of the themes of the storyRodericks Library“the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean DIndagine”“the Directorium Inquisitorum”“old Afr
14、ican Satyrs, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours” (516-17)Poes Theory of Literary UnityPoe earned his living as a “magazinist,” not a fiction writer.He was an editor and reviewer for many major magazines.Poe wrote a great deal of literary criticism, literary theory, and book reviews.His th
15、eory of literary unity was articulated in a review of Hawthornes collection of stories, Twice-Told Tales in 1842An author should “conceive, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, and then invent such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived eff
16、ect. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design.Unity in “Fall of the House of Usher”First and last paragraphs are mirror images of each other, creating symmetryThe texts-within-text reinforce the central themeThe house itself symbolizes the split in the familyThe construction of the house reflects a “perfect adaptation of parts” (510)
