Mockery of Transcendentalism in The Fall of the House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe's Mockery of Transcendentalism inThroughout the development of our culture there have been a large number of literary movements. From existentialism to naturalism, humanism to surrealism, they all play an important role in the development of the literature we read today. One important movement during the nineteenth century is known as the transcendentalist movement. Transcendentalism is a form of idealism. In philosophy and literature, it is the belief in a higher reality than that found in sense experience or in a higher kind of knowledge than that achieved by human reason. Nearly all transcendentalist doctrines stem from the division of reality into a realm of spirit and a realm of matter. This movement influenced many great writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe. While Thoreau and Emerson upheld the beliefs of transcendentalism in nearly all of their works, Poe criticizes those beliefs. This is strongly displayed in his short story "The Fall of the House of Usher." Poe mocks transcendentalism in many different ways throughout "The Fall of the House of Usher." Rather than the traditional upward spiral, which is very character
Poe ridicules this flowery aspect in the first sentence of the story. The narrator goes back to a familiar childhood house, yet does not feel comfortable there. Both Roderick and Madeline Usher differ from transcendentalist beliefs with their disintegration of the body and mind, instead of a rebirth of the body and mind. The lack of familiarity and discomfort felt by the narrator contradict transcendentalist views of compassion and warmth. Madeline supposedly "dies" within this work. Through his appearance and actions he is vital to the argument that Poe mocks transcendentalism. In the beginning the atmosphere and house are used to set the dreary tone. Madeline Usher, the twin sister of Roderick, is also a useful tool in Poe's satire of transcendentalism. The term melancholy is used as an adjective to describe the house. This lack of light is a direct attack on the transcendentalist tenet that light is more powerful than dark because one ray of light penetrates darkness. The setting and house are described with a strong negative aspect that is not customary to transcendentalist works. One of the major beliefs of the transcendentalists is not to dwell in the past. This is displayed directly through Roderick and somewhat indirectly through the narrator. They believe you should value the present, the 'here and now'.
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