"The Fall of the House of Usher" Thesis

Erika Pitcher November 1, 2014 Edgar Allan Poe used the disorders of multiple personalities and schizophrenia in countless numbers of his eerie and shuddersome tales. An example of his use of them is in “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Multiple Personality Disorder, or Dissociative Identity Disorder is used in “The Fall of the House of Usher” to describe Roderick Usher’s mental issues. The narrator could be a result of a childhood trauma, resulting in Usher having multiple personality disorder. In the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Roderick Usher and the narrator are the same person, just different variations of each other because of their social interactions with other characters, their common interests and their emotional characteristics. Roderick Usher and the narrator are the same person because of their social interactions with the other characters, like Madeline and the doctors. “At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the temporary entombment,” (Poe, 28). This shows that Usher doesn’t want anyone else, but his best friend, or his other personality to join him in grieving his sister’s death. People with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) may have trouble keeping a job and maintaining relationships, ("Dissociative Disorders." ). Since both Usher and the narrator don’t interact with anyone else besides each other, this leads the reader to ponder the thought of Dissociative Identity Disorder. They spend all their time together. “For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either myself or Usher ; and during this period I was busied in the earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend,” ( Poe, 15). This also is an example of how the two don’t interact with other characters.We don’t know what Usher is really thinking, and the narrator is only trying to help Usher. They both don’t interact with anyone else, and they have the same thought process. “Dissociative Identity