The Fall Of The House Of Usher Essay

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Pages: 4

escape the House dwindling, the climactic scene in which he shrieks, “MADMAN!...MADMAN!” to the Narrator serves to highlight Roderick’s frustrations (Manning). With the death of his sister however, Roderick feels as though he as one his first victory because he felt as though he was destined to die with her. Garmon writes that, “Madeline has been to close a limit to his personality; she has in effect defined him, limiting his ability to act- to leave the House of Usher. However, Madeline does not die, and ultimately in a series of events, the House tears open, disrupting the foundation which cause the house to fall into itself. Roderick is consumed by his fatal flaw, “the very quality that makes him an artist, his extreme sensitivity.” A flaw that makes him long for freedom but keep him incapable of achieving it (Gerald, 1972). Wasserman has a different take on her understanding of Roderick, describing him as a “deadly relation with the Other.” Wasserman believe Poe’s story describes the hardship of “accepting the necessary and true Other in preference to what simply reflects one’s own self. The Fall of the House of Usher fictionalizes the core conflict between the struggle to …show more content…
Personally I find that Garmon’s idea of Roderick was much more logical to me. I could understand why state the House was in as a result of the years upon years the House has become seeped in the taboo violations of the Usher Family. So much so that the house has taken it upon itself to end the lineage. I also found it interesting the understanding that Roderick Usher was actually striving for his individuality, and as his last ditch effort, reached out to the narrator for help. When I first read the story, I did not read it with that understand, but after reviewing Garmon analysis, I now could see how his madness was attributed to his longing for artistic