"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe The mind is a
complicated thing. Not many stories are able to portray this in such an
interesting manner as in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of
Usher". The haunting story of a man and his sister, living in the old
family mansion. But as all should know, much symbolism can be found in
most of Poe's works. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is no exception.
First of all, we have the symbolisme of Roderick Ushers mind and the House
of Usher coinciding. Both can be seem as one and the same. Residing in the
house are both Roderick and his sister, Madeline. What can be translated
from this is the age old hypothesis, the mind is divided in two parts: a
male or rational part, and a female or emotionnal part. In Usher's mind,
we can see that he has problems expressing his emotions, represented as
Madeline's unknown sickness. When she finally dies, Roderick puts her away
in an old dungeon t'ill she is to be buried. One could say that Usher is
trying to forget about his emotions by throwing that part of his mind into
the basement, or subconcious. He knows that if he can survive a fortnight
without this emotional part in him, he'll be able to live without it for
the rest of his days. Another symbol is the one of the fortnight. A
fortnight is 14 days, or half a moon cycle. The full moon can be seen as
another symbol for the unconcious mind or even the dark side in us all.
Whereas a new moon represents the concious or good side in us all.
Madeline was locked away just at the beginning of the full moons half
cycle. In other words, Roderick knew that this was the worst time for his
sister to die, she could easily comeback, using the moons dark power.
Unfourtunatly, on the night o...