Preview

The Differences in the Fall of the House of Usher and the House of Usher

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
470 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Differences in the Fall of the House of Usher and the House of Usher
------------------------
Mrs. Matthews
Juniors H. English
November 02, 2012

The short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher," and the movie, the House of Usher, are two very unalike pieces of work. The House of Usher is a poor representation of "The Fall of the House of Usher," for not staying true to the real production by Edgar Allan Poe. Although the movie has a few noticeable similarities, Hollywood loses the true value and the plot of the original short story. The House of Usher creates a whole new story, that takes the name of the story, but ruins the masterpiece already done by Poe.

"The Fall of the House of Usher," is one of the popular horror stories written by Poe. And it's remarkable plot, is lost in the production of the House of Usher . In the short story the plot is rather simple, Roderick and Madeline Usher are the last of the Ushers who are suffering from incurable diseases. Roderick suffers from "a morbid acuteness of the senses," while Madeline suffers from "..a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, or frequent although transient affections of a partly cataleptical character.." This disease gives her a deathlike look, making her body lose its feeling, and loses consciousness. Madeline falls into her deathlike symptoms and is thought of as being dead. Roderick and his friend, carry her into the dungeon and keep her there in her coffin. Where she then awakens and frees herself. Covered in her own blood, she kills Roderick by being too frightened by the sight, and the unnamed narrator flees the house. Whereas in the House of Usher there are only a few of these events that take place.

In both the movie and short story the Ushers have a incurable, unidentified disease in which dooms them to their horrible deaths. However, Roderick somehow believes he is being controlled by the house he lives in and believes he must do the same things his family has done and to die in the same house he lived in his whole life. Due to his

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The story “The Fall of the House of Usher” tells how two childhood friends the narrator and Roderick Usher after many years Roderick writes to the narrator and ask for help because of his illness that runs through his family. The mansion that Roderick lives in has been there for generations that has been past down. The narrator is freaked out by the house because of the noises from the wind and the appearance of the mansion. Roderick’s illness is making him go insane as well as his sister Madeline Usher. As time went Madeline fainted and Roderick thought she had past away so he made her the burial as every other family member.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Fall of the House of Usher is another horror fiction story written by Edgar Allen Poe. It is set in a large, decaying, old house where many crazy and creepy things begin to happen, and the fear factor is raised while reading this story due to the fact that Poe wrote it in the first-person point of view. This viewpoint brings out more terror and instills more fear into readers because they feel what the main character or narrator feels. This can send chills up and down readers' spines for the mere…

    • 751 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. Although Poe wrote this short story before the invention of modern psychological science, Roderick's condition can be described according to its terminology. They include a form of sensory overload known as hyperesthesia (hypersensitivity to light, sounds, smells, and tastes), hypochondria (an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness), and acute anxiety. It is revealed that Roderick's twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, deathlike trances. The narrator is impressed with Roderick's paintings, and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings "The Haunted Palace", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it.…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both Edgar Allan Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Julio Cortazar's “House Taken Over” have similar settings because they both take place in in spooky large houses. However in Poe's story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the setting is different because it is a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year. By contrast, in cortazar's “House Taken Over” the setting is it is an old house that is spacious and makes creepy noises.…

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Most Edgar Allen Poe stories contain a haunting and eerie tone and this short story proves no exception. “The Fall of the House of Usher” revolves around the narrator's childhood friend, Roderick Usher. Roderick suffers from an undisclosed mental illness and Roderick’s sister, Madeline, is near death, when introduced. When Madeline appears to be dead Roderick decides to bury her in an underground vault. The days following this incident Roderick’s normal countenance fades and he goes mad. Afterwards, Madeline escapes from the vault, kills Roderick and the house splits down the middle and sinks into the ground. In Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, various critics argue that the story contains supernatural influences demonstrated…

    • 553 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Jonathan A. Cook states, “we find the narrator continuing in his attempt to derive more pleasure than pain from the scene of the house before him, for he speculates that "a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression" (Poe). In other words, the narrator is now seemingly attempting to transform the view of the House of Usher into a...picturesque [scene]” (Cook). Right from the beginning, when he had only had a glance at the house, the narrator felt himself compelled to the “dark side” that Roderick seems to be a part of. He went from seeing the house as dreary and gloomy to seeing it as extravagant and compelling. Roderick has contacted the narrator who was his childhood friend to comfort him because his sisters health is deteriorating. However, this may not be Roderick’s true reason for calling upon the narrator. There can be a possible darker background on why Roderick is so set on having him come to the house which can be his mission to bury his sister alive with the help of the…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Madeline is somewhat elusive to the narrator for the majority of the story, for she pays no mind to him, and he says, “As he spoke, the lady Madeline (for she was so called) passed through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared” (Poe 600). Madeline suffers from a condition where she goes into a comatose state for extended periods of time. Roderick, in a very disturbed state of mind, mistakes one of her cataleptic episodes with death, and asks the narrator to help him bury her. Later that night, much to the narrator’s horror, Roderick reveals that they buried Madeline alive, and the sounds they were hearing was Madeline trying to escape her imprisonment (whether or not this was purposeful is debatable). Ultimately, this false burial leads to Madeline’s actual death, but before she dies, she comes into the room Roderick and the narrator are in and, quite literally, frightens Roderick to death. The narrator flees directly after, and the House of Usher collapses in on itself, to be swallowed by the tarn.…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The interpretation of the book, "The Fall of the House of Usher," by Edgar Allan…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Romanticism moves away from the ideas of realism and has a habit of focusing on the individual more than anything else. The environment in most romantic pieces reflect the feelings of a character that the writing hopes to reflect upon. In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” written by Edgar Allen Poe embodies the romantic theme through a very dark matter. The story starts of by describing an extremely gloomy setting where many of the trees are dead and isn’t a very pleasant area to live in. Poe goes on and introduces us to Roderick Usher who seems to suffer a mental illness which ends up leading to his sister’s death. Poe utilizes the themes of a very dark romanticism through focusing on the one Roderick Usher and the somber past that the Usher family possess and expresses this by using thorough details of the narrator’s surroundings. The surplus amount…

    • 416 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although the stories were hard to understand, “The Fall of the House of Usher” more than “House Taken Over”, both of the authors did a great job at representing the genre of their story. The setting that Edgar Allen Poe presented in “The Fall of the House of Usher” was very bleak, in the short story Poe mentions things like…

    • 604 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In conclusion, in The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick Usher’s fear caused him to go crazy, bury his sister alive, and dying. The act of being scared influences one’s actions when taken upon. Usher is driven into insanity over his house, he then buries Madeline after being worried, and the fear of fear then kills him. Usher’s take on fear relates to the real world, because anyone’s fears can get the best of them. “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the mastery of it.” Fear can either build one’s courage, or fear can bring one’s courage…

    • 571 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poe’s use of single effect in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is quickly seen through the setting from the first line of the story. Poe conveys a creepy tone when he describes the setting as a “dull, dark, and soundless day” leaving the reader with a eerie feeling. The author expresses a vigorous manner…

    • 398 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the narrator approaches the house, his first glance of the structure is not straight at it, but instead at a puddle which reflects the house upside down. The symbolism of the reflection is reflected in the way that Roderick and Madeline are twins, but are boy vs. girl, mentally ill vs. physically ill, and dead vs. alive. Upon further inspection of the house, the narrator notes, “there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaption of parts and the crumbling condition of the individual stones” (89). The House of Usher has only existed through incest, so this description could be in reference to the fact that from a distance, or as a whole, the Usher family was in fine condition, until you looked closely at the individual members and see the ailments that are crumbling the individual family members.…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Roderick is spooked and dies and the narrator runs for his life as the house begins to collapse. When he reaches the outside of the house it suddenly crumbles down to the floor. That is where the story ends and yes the last part was exaggerating too because how could it be that at that precise moment the house decided to collapse after Roderick has died. The Fall of the House of Usher is an amazing part of romantic sims once you look deeper into the story and find its…

    • 731 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Family

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Roderick Usher is the only man left from the usher family. “The Writer spoke of acute bodily illness of a mental disorder which oppressed him and of an earnest desire to see me, as his only personal best friend “narrator. Usher had a mental illness, ha was feeling very sick so he called his only childhood friend to cheer him up. Usher’s mental illness can be seen in the house appearance, the narrator describes it very well “I had been passing alone, on my horseback, through a singular dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.” The house was black and deteriorated with a dirty tarn and broken fences. The house resembles Ushers state of mind and his appearance. The narrator describes him like a cadaverousness of complexion, and eye like large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison and his pallid lips, and with almost no hair.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics