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Roderick Usher Essay

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Poe uses the life-like characteristics of an otherwise decaying house as a device for giving the house a supernatural atmosphere. Usher feels that it is the form and substance of his family mansion that affects his morale. The narrator observes the house “upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows— upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul” (Poe 4). He believes that, as a result of the arrangement of the stones, the house has taken on life. When entering the house, the narrator becomes increasingly convinced that the house has some supernatural effect on those living there after observing the odd behavior and personalities of its inhabitants. Throughout the story, Poe's imagery …show more content…
The siblings are an external representation of the philosophical relationship between mind and body, but become overly identified with their respective halves of the equation. Roderick projects his own morbid self-absorption onto the figure of his dying sibling, in effect turning his twin into an external mirror image of his deteriorating mental state. One might say that Madeline is the reflection of Roderick's mind and the Usher house of which will fall. One of Roderick Usher's paintings features a burial vault lit from within, as if he knows about a life-force coming from inside a coffin. Their birth and death occur at the same time. Both siblings release feelings of gloom and doom. He regarded her with “an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread” (Poe 7). Madeline appears ghostly, as if she is just an apparition. Roderick too appears deathlike and feels his sister's every move and presence; when he announces that she is outside the door and has come for him, she appears exactly as he predicts. The elimination of one sibling thus spells the end of the other. These two can be defined as doppelgangers that are of opposite sexes; together they form a unity, of body and

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