Poe’s Macabre Imagery in The Fall of the House of Usher
If the reader were to examine the title of one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous works, The fall of the House of Usher, they might immediately think it was a story about a house being demolished. On the other hand, if the readers know anything about Poe they must know he loves to write about the macabre, sinister, and horror; and The Fall of the House of Usher is full of all three. The macabre means that something is ghastly or dwells on death and dying. Sinister means something is evil – and leads to some kind of disaster. Horror is something which causes strong fear, dislike, or disgust. The imagery in Poe’s The fall of the House of Usher helps the reader move from one action to another, it sets up the scenery, helps foreshadow events, and sets up the tragedy of the Usher family. This imagery helps move the reader through every element within Poe’s work: exposition, complication, denouement, and hamartia. Edgar Allen Poe uses sinister images of evil, dark, and frightening surroundings in The fall of the House of Usher to draw the reader in and entice them to stay for a while. His imagery personifies the mansion, indicts the main character who seems to be struggling with a mental illness, and keeps the reader moving from one unexpected action to another.
Poe’s imagery draws a connection between the fall of the literal house, and the fall of the Usher family, with Roderick and Madeline being the last two members of the Usher family. His initial words, “dull, dark…oppressively…dreary… melancholy… [And] insufferable gloom”, etc. (Diyanni, 2008 p. 149) help to warn the reader of what is to come. His words tell of an old, ancient, mansion with “bleak walls…vacant eye-like windows [and]…white trunks of decayed trees – with an utter depression of soul” (p. 149). While the house is personified, the narrator’s description of Roderick almost exactly echoes that of his description of the house: “ghastly pallor of the skin…miraculous luster of the eye…arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity” (p. 152). One writer, Olson, claims that through Poe’s descriptive words, “…Usher is organically linked with the mansion, and the Gothic feelings of decay and disorder” and that the fall of the house in the conclusive scene is nothing but a “…demonstration of art’s fundamental place in man’s perspective of himself” (Olson, 1960, p. 559).
The narrator, upon entering the room where Roderick waits, states that the room has an air of “sorrow”. He calls it “An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom [which] hung over and pervaded all.” (Diyanni, 2008, p. 152). This leads the reader in believing that Roderick is not only sick, but very sad or upset about something. This foreshadows some sort of tragedy which has already occurred or is about to occur. With that being said, one writer thought that, “Poe's protagonist, Roderick Usher, fails to engage our imaginative sympathy; "the story lacks tragic quality, even pathos." Poe has narrowed the fate of his principal character to a "clinical case" which we the readers (and also the narrator) view from without. "Free will and rational decision" exist neither in the protagonist nor in the story.” (Spitzer, 1952, p. 351). On the other hand, it is my belief that Poe used imagery to draw out the reader’s empathy and sympathy. The reader is able to feel the pain and anguish of Roderick at the supposed death of his sister – his feelings of helplessness. He knows, too, that he is dying, which the audience can also relate to through the eyes of the narrator, especially when they are already experiencing the “air of …deep… gloom”.
Koffka, a professor of psychology, argues that emotions such as empathy are both subjective and Ego related “since ‘we may see a gloomy land-scape, even when we ourselves are perfectly cheerful…Traditional psychology will retort: it is you who have projected these feelings into those objects of nature; you cannot seriously uphold that a landscape is really sad, that the daffodils are really gleeful. You endow these objects with your own emotions by the process called empathy." (St. Armand, 1977, p. 32). Koffka goes on to say that “landscapes can be sad…can affect us and produce results in us” (p. 33), but that could be taken one step further by adding: the particular adjectives used to describe the landscape, the person, or an object are what help determine how the reader sees the emotions of the object, setting, or person (p. 32). Therefore Poe does a fabulous job of putting those adjectives in his short story to give emotion to the story, and help the reader feel the empathy. Matter of fact, Machen states, “Poe, who knew many secrets, knew this, and taught that landscape gardening was as truly a fine art as poetry or painting; since it availed to communicate the mysteries to the human spirit” (p. 33).
Brown puts it more eloquently: “More subtly, Poe heightens our emotional involvement in the tales by duplicating, in actions he describes that have nothing to do with composition, our actual experience of reading. Words such as "duration," "attention," "beauty," "expression," and "remembrance," repeated again and again by Poe's narrators in describing the action of a tale, recall Poe's own statements on composition and serve to remind us that the action of a tale parallels the act of putting it together, of writing and reading it.” (Brown, 1998, p. 450). In other words, Poe’s words not only help the audience relate to the story emotionally, they also relate back to writing. It is this way with art and writing that draws the audience in and keeps them enthralled both emotionally and intellectually.
Not only does the imagery draw connections and descriptions, it also foreshadows the demise of the Ushers and their house, but does Poe use imagery and the narrator to properly prepare the reader for a storm tearing the entire house down to its foundation? Poe does foreshadow certain events. He certainly does foreshadow the demise of Roderick, at the very least, while really preparing the reader for the fall of the entire house. The house is dilapidated and worn around the edges as the narrator describes it, and one could say Roderick’s mental illness destroyed him and his sister down to their very foundation. The imagery Poe uses to prepare the reader for Roderick’s death describes Roderick’s appearance and behavior. The narrator describes Roderick as cadaverous with pallor and gauntness (p. 152). His appearance had changed so much, so that the narrator is unsure of who was before him. He compares Roderick to a drunk or opiate addict. Although, Roderick believes this condition to be hereditary and would “soon pass off” (p. 152), his very appearance, as described by his long-time friend (and our narrator) does not give the reader much hope of recovery.
Some critics inaccurately think that Poe’s tale “is not tragic because the "reader gets no sense of struggle," and another critic more accurately states, “They are overlooking the fact that Roderick, for all his physical and mental delicacy, strives intensely to live. This struggle aggravates his illness and drives him to near madness, but he clings tenaciously to life and to reason until his compassion for Madeline and his self-revulsion at the torture he has subjected her to causes him to accept death” (Cohen, 1959, p. 271). Allison would have the reader believe that there was an incestuous relationship between Roderick and his sister, Madeline, but it seems Poe’s intent was to show Madeline and Roderick as two sides of a person’s personality, as in the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. “As we shall see, Coleridge's theory of identity fuses the genealogical with the aesthetic themes in "Usher," explaining the characters' entrapment within an incestuous house of horrors” (Allison, 1988, p. 41).
Poe uses imagery to draw a connection between Madeline and Roderick as, not only twins, but as two sides of a coin (one the physical aspect, and the second as the emotional aspect of the pair). By Poe’s choice of words the reader can feel the absolute dread emanating from Roderick at his supposed illness, and his palpable fear for his sister. This fear reaches its climax when Madeline, who Roderick buries alive, leaves her tomb to find her brother. “"Usher" criticism's middle ground concerns itself with how the two characters interact: Roderick draws the narrator into madness; Roderick initiates him into "modern" metaphysics and aesthetics; Roderick is the narrator's double. This range of approaches has a kaleidoscopic effect: many bright fragments refract the light of Poe's story, forming an apparently arbitrary, expanding mass.”(Howes, 1986, p. 68). Some Poe critics wonder over the relationship between Roderick and Madeline. One critic calls them twins, and speculates that Roderick and Madeline may be lovers, or at the very least Roderick may have an unrequited love for his sister. “The theme of forbidden love is not
uncommon in Poe” (Robinson, p 75). If the reader would remember Annabelle Lee or The
Raven, Poe shows how a loved one dies.
One cannot explore the imagery of Usher without questioning the illness which both Usher siblings seemed to have. Lyle Kendall, Jr. would have the readers of Poe believe that he concocted “The fall of the House of Usher” as a story about vampires because vampirical stories were popular in Poe’s time. If one were to accept this argument, they would note the pallor that both Roderick and Madeline which is common among vampire stories, but from where does the depression come from? Roderick’s illness could be related to an anemia, but he tells the narrator that his illness is hereditary. Vampirism is not hereditary according to myth. Then, too, one must consider why neither Roderick, nor Madeline would take the opportunity to feast on the narrator in order to save their own lives; if vampirism was their true illness. Of course, one could say that the narrator was a childhood friend, so that is why they avoided the temptation. But, would a vampire choose a friend over survival?
Imagery is also used is several components in “The Fall of the House of Usher. One of
these components is known as the exposition. The author generally includes the exposition to give the reader some background about the different people, places, and things in the story (Kemen, 1999). In this case, Poe gives the reader a little background when he tells the reader that the narrator and Roderick were childhood friends. Also, it is stated that the house of Usher had been in the family for many generations. It is also discussed that the illness that Roderick has was inherited from his father. But, this is pretty much the extent of Poe’s exposition, and it comes as the words of the narrative, who is just another character in the story.
Another component which uses imagery and moves the story along is the complication, better known as the rising action. According to Suite101.com, the rising action is made up of three elements: conflict, cause, and effect. They each work off of each other. “In other words, conflict is created by a cycle of cause and effect.” (suite101.com). The first conflict in the story presents itself very early. Matter of fact, the conflict shows up intertwined in the exposition. When the narrator describes the house, he is presenting the first conflict: the “sense of insufferable gloom pervaded [his] spirit” (p. 149). The narrator seems to battle against a foreboding sense of evil to get to his friend, Roderick Usher. Then the narrator is confronted with the appearance of Roderick, and his apparent illness. The ultimate rising action for the narrator is the ability to stay sane with all the insanity going on around him. He has no idea how to take the changes in his friend, the death of Madeline, her reappearing alive after they had entombed her, and ultimately the death and collapse of Roderick.
Denouement is a component within literature known as the falling action. It generally follows the rising action or the climax. According to Diyanni (2008), a denouement is the “resolution of the plot” (p. G-3). In The Fall of the House of Usher, the denouement is when the narrator is able to escape the evilness of the house before it collapses. The collapse is the ultimate resolution for Roderick and his sister. Whether the reader chooses to believe in the vampire twist on Poe’s story, or not, they have to know there is no way the Usher’s survived the storm and the literal Fall of their house. And since the readers know from the exposition that they are the last remaining Ushers, they know the Usher family has truly fallen.
The last important component is the most important piece of the puzzle. “Hamartia is a concept used by Aristotle to describe tragedy. Hamartia leads to the fall of a noble man , caused by some excess or mistake in behavior” (ancienthistory.about.com). In The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick’s biggest two mistakes are staying in that house, and loving his sister too much. One could argue that loving his sister prevented him from marrying and having children. But both of them being either mentally or physically ill prevented them both from getting married and having children. Another thought could be that neither Roderick nor Madeline wanted to bring children into the house that they both thought was cursed, or a child which would inherit their illness. What ever thought prescribed to, it is clear that their family will perish with the both of them, since neither had children.
Within “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe draws the reader into the house; he sets up the scene with dark imagery and sinister language. Like a campfire horror story, Poe drags the reader into his suspense with the flashlight highlighting the dark, dreary, and sinister surroundings, and the people who complete it. The background is set within that dark and dreary house. The reader is introduced to the antagonist, Roderick Usher, and the rising action develops quickly from the narrator descriptions of the house and Roderick’s condition. The house becomes alive right before the reader’s eyes, the characters seem familiar (but somewhat disturbed), and the images of darkness and despair move the reader from one sinister or mysterious act to another. The images of darkness and despair carry the reader right through to the denouement. The denouement draws the narrator out of the evilness, but the hamartia brings down the house (pun intended). The tragedy is not so much that the Usher’s home collapsed, or even that the Usher’s family has died, but that the Usher’s never left that cursed house. They never had children of their own, or knew happiness and love. It seems that they were surrounded by evil, corruption, destruction, mental illness, and darkness their entire lives. The miracle is that Roderick had the narrator as a friend, at all, and that the friend stuck around as long as he did. Poe, as usual, painted a scene of darkness, macabre, sinister, mysterious imagery. He threw in a little unrequited love, and left readers and critics pondering over whether the Ushers were a family of vampires or not. Either way, Poe used imagery to bring the mansion to life, connect it’s life force with that of the people living within it, constrict two people with possible psychological issues, and kept the reader enthralled to the bitter-sweet end.
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