The Falling House of Usher By: Edgar Allan Poe
What does grief have to do with it?
"The Falling House of Usher", by Edgar Allan Poe, is a short story about the narrator helping his childhood friend with the grief that he has found himself overcome with. The object of Roderick Usher's grief is his sister. However, he grieves her as she still lives because she has a dire illness of which he grieves. This is seen when Usher says,
"He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin - to the severe and long-continued illness - indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution - of a tenderly beloved sister - his sole companion for long years - his last and only relative on earth."
He has the option to grieve for all of his other lost relatives, but he would rather grieve for his living sister who is bound to leave him soon. In the story, Roderick Usher experiences many of the stages. He goes through all, but bargaining.
"He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin - to the severe and long-continued illness - indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution - of a tenderly beloved sister - his sole companion for long years - his last and only relative on earth."
He has the option to grieve for all of his other lost relatives, but he would rather grieve for his living sister who is bound to leave him soon. In the story, Roderick Usher experiences many of the stages. He goes through all, but bargaining.
Text Stage Shifts Analysis
"It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady"
"'Her decease,' he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, 'would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.'" The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house. "When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother - but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears." "Not hear it ? - yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long - long - long - many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it - yet I dared not - oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am ! - I dared not - I dared not speak ! We have put her living in the tomb ! Said I not that my senses were acute ? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them - many, many days ago - yet I dared not - I dared not speak ! And now - to-night - Ethelred - ha ! ha ! - the breaking of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield ! - say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault ! Oh whither shall I fly ? Will she not be here anon ? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste ? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair ? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart ? Madman !" - here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul - " Madman ! I tell you that she now stands without the door ! " |
Depression
Anger Acceptance Depression Denial |
Usher is taken by depression over his current undesirable situation.
Usher's bitterness shows his anger towards his sisters near death, an emotional side effect of grief. By burying his sister, Usher has accepted the cruel truth that she is dead. He now has the potential to start moving on. Usher is overtaken by the sadness of his sister's death. He has reentered the stage of depression. Roderick Usher hears many noises during the story that the narrator is reading aloud to him. Usher correlates these noises to his sister coming out of her grave tomb. He refuses to accept that she is truly dead and completely convinces himself that she is about to walk into the room and kill him. His sense of her presence and his thoughts of hearing hear are mental side effects of the deep grief that he is experiencing. |