“Hell in Isolation” In his short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allen Poe investigates the negative effects of self-isolationism. Roderick Usher, a mentally ill, incestuous, and secluded man, requests the narrator’s help. Upon his arrival, the narrator notices eerie attributes of the “melancholy” (3) house of Usher, while walking through clouds of miasma. The narrator then witnesses Roderick’s extreme paranoia, which stems from his solitude. The narrator also catches glimpses of Roderick’s sister, Madeline, who suffers a physical, cataleptic impairment. Through the narrator’s experiences in the hell-like mansion of the house of Usher, Poe demonstrates the misery and near-insanity that develops from self-isolation. In
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The narrator finds him “a bounded slave” (9) to “an anomalous species of terror” (9). Furthermore, the narrator characterizes Roderick’s voice as that of a “lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium” (9), as if Roderick lives in a mad delirium. Fear controls his life to such an extent that he cannot think rationally, as he tells the narrator, “I must abandon life and reason together” (10). Roderick’s sister, Madeline, whom the narrator details as Roderick’s “tenderly beloved” (10) and “his sole companion for long years” (10), also lives in madness. Since she suffers from catalepsy, she experiences death-like states while seizing. She remains in physical darkness and Roderick in mental darkness. Roderick tells the narrator he senses and fears Madeline’s near death as well as his own. His mind clouded by terror, not even literature, music, or arts, which Roderick used to enjoy, can relieve him. His mind cannot escape; his imagination cannot fly. The Ushers remain confined in their isolation, stuck inside their own hell, just as the rooms of the House of Usher seem “inaccessible from within” …show more content…
Roderick yells at the narrator, “We have put her living in the tomb!” (24), while searching frantically for an escape, shouting, “Oh! wither shall I fly?” (24). However, since he lives in the isolated, miasmic, dark house of Usher, he cannot leave. Although paranoid, he accurately predicts his death just as Madeline appears at the door, where she “[falls] heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and final death-agonies, [bears] him to the floor a corpse” (25), rendering him a victim to his worst fears, a true personal hell. Upon his death, the narrator escapes the hell house while he still can, witnessing the house’s “fissure rapidly widen” (25) and its succeeding fall. Just as its inhabitants fall, so does the house, victims of their isolation and resulting personal
The narrator finds him “a bounded slave” (9) to “an anomalous species of terror” (9). Furthermore, the narrator characterizes Roderick’s voice as that of a “lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium” (9), as if Roderick lives in a mad delirium. Fear controls his life to such an extent that he cannot think rationally, as he tells the narrator, “I must abandon life and reason together” (10). Roderick’s sister, Madeline, whom the narrator details as Roderick’s “tenderly beloved” (10) and “his sole companion for long years” (10), also lives in madness. Since she suffers from catalepsy, she experiences death-like states while seizing. She remains in physical darkness and Roderick in mental darkness. Roderick tells the narrator he senses and fears Madeline’s near death as well as his own. His mind clouded by terror, not even literature, music, or arts, which Roderick used to enjoy, can relieve him. His mind cannot escape; his imagination cannot fly. The Ushers remain confined in their isolation, stuck inside their own hell, just as the rooms of the House of Usher seem “inaccessible from within” …show more content…
Roderick yells at the narrator, “We have put her living in the tomb!” (24), while searching frantically for an escape, shouting, “Oh! wither shall I fly?” (24). However, since he lives in the isolated, miasmic, dark house of Usher, he cannot leave. Although paranoid, he accurately predicts his death just as Madeline appears at the door, where she “[falls] heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and final death-agonies, [bears] him to the floor a corpse” (25), rendering him a victim to his worst fears, a true personal hell. Upon his death, the narrator escapes the hell house while he still can, witnessing the house’s “fissure rapidly widen” (25) and its succeeding fall. Just as its inhabitants fall, so does the house, victims of their isolation and resulting personal