“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe is a dark, gothic and mysterious story about an odd and creepy family that lives within a haunted mansion. Poe’s writing style is fictional as he includes gothic and supernatural elements within the story. In The Fall of the House of Usher there is a narrator (who remains unnamed the whole time) who goes to visit his childhood friend Roderick after hearing that he has been feeling ill and unlike himself. Once the Narrator gets to the house he is immediately taken back by the presence of the house as he does not remember it the way he once did as a child. The narrator describes the house to have a dark, gloomy, and haunted presence, but he enters anyways for the sake of Roderick. The narrator tries everything he can think of in order to cheer Roderick up and help him feel better but nothing seems to be working. Roderick’s sister Madeline also falls ill an dies; the men decide to bury her in the backyard as a result. A day later the house seems to get even creepier as the narrator and Roderick begin to hear voices throughout the house. Roderick thinks it s his sister speaking to them saying that they buried her alive, soon after Roderick has this thought his sister appears in the doorway and kills her brother because she is envious, thinking he tried to kill her. The narrator watches this scene go down between the two siblings and then escapes the house only to see it fall and crumble into pieces right in front of his eyes.
The storyline along with the diction that Poe uses in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is obviously very fictional but in a way some of the themes and ideas that the story includes are comparative to other novels about home that we have read in class. “The Glass Castle” for example is a sad, honest, and compelling story about the life of a girl and her family and their struggle living in poverty. While “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Glass Castle” are completely different stories they are similar in the sense that they discuss the common idea of a home. Although both stories are written in completely different forms and have different contexts, they both describes a home as an empty and odd place. The narrator in the “The Fall of the House of Usher” feels distance and somewhat frightened by the house when he visits his best friend because it is unlike how he remembers it from the past, and senses an odd and haunted presence amongst the family and property. While “The Glass Castle” is very much a realistic biography yet there similar emotions being expressed in terms of how Jeannette feels about the many houses her family inhabits throughout her childhood. Jeannette expresses how every “home” her family moves into doesn’t actually feel like a place she can call home; she sees it more as a temporary place in which the family will live for a short period of time before moving on to the next destination. Although, from a broad perspective the two stories are completely different it is interesting to see that they have a similar outlook and idea of what a
I enjoyed reading your comparison about the idea of home in the two books. I’m interested in knowing more about how these connect to how you see home. You might add your perspective to the mix!
I like your comparison of “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Glass Castle.” I believe comparing the two very opposing books is crucial to understand how individuals of different sorts view home. Roderick is too attached to his home as Jeannette doesn’t find a specific place as home but more as a stopping point until the next comes around. Do you believe “Fun Home” could also be used in your comparison as well? Yes, a very different book from the two; however, she describes her family as a sham and that her father appreciates the museum like features in the house perhaps more than the family. How could this be compared to similar emotions when dealing with comfortability in family and within home in general?
I think you are completely correct in the idea that a fictional home can be just as lonely, and empty as a real home. It’s interesting to see your correlations between the Fall of the House of Usher, and the Glass Castle. It makes me think of Fun Home, and how even an established, but never finished home can be just as lonely as traveling from home to home. It makes me think of the saying ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’. They are like two differing perspectives of despair, and loneliness and are a reminder that tragedy, and pain can come in many different forms. Jeanette despaired for a home while Alison despaired to escape one. Both are true, and are based around the same time period. It is interesting to see how experiences can form an inner artist in real people. I think, for me, that’s what the Fall of Usher lacked, a continuity of the story after it’s over, that we can watch. I think that’s a very special privilege that we are afforded with memoirs.
Good insight. You’re right that there’s definitely some thematic overlap between the two stories but it’s interesting to see how they approach similar concepts from different angles. The characterized home in FoTHoU is explored differently from the idea of home that plays a central role in The Glass Castle. Making connections between seemingly different things and finding the commonality in them is one of the great things about literature!