Paper Topic:

american literature

In Edgar Allan Poe 's The Fall of the House of Usher and The Masque of the Red Death - two classic tales of Gothic horror - the master story-teller explores the realm of fear by bringing his characters face to face with the objects of their revulsion and terror : Roderick Usher and his guest against the resurrected corpse of the Lady Madeline , and Prince Prospero and his courtiers against the blood-soaked figure of the Red Death

The author creates a gloomy and foreboding atmosphere : the bleak mansion of Usher , and the grotesque , blood-colored

apartment of Prince Prospero where the revellers gathered while a deadly pestilence raged without

In Usher , an air of trepidation subdues the newcomer : There was an iciness , a sinking , a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness . In Masque , Poe employs contrast to accentuate the ambience of eeriness and dread : There was much of the beautiful , much of the wanton , much of the bizarre , something of the terrible ' in the apartments where the revellers gathered for the masquerade . The build-up to the eerie climax proceeds inexorably in both tales , like the hourly chiming of the clock in Masque as midnight approaches , and the feeble struggles of the entombed Madeline , felt and heard by Usher through her week-long interment at the mansion vault

In both stories , Poe responds to death and disease like any ordinary human being - with fear and loathing . The subject of Lady Madeline 's illness is not mentioned after she has become finally bed-ridden , as Usher and his friend bury themselves in music , books and works of art Prospero and his courtiers considered the mummer 's joke ' in such bad taste they wanted to hang him at the battlements the very next day

The protagonists view death as something to be abhorred and shunned - the mere thought of it is quickly vanished and forgotten by the revellers in Masque who went on with their gaiety after being stopped momentarily by the ominous chimes of the clock

A hypochondriac , Roderick Usher suffers from a morbid acuteness of the senses ' which make his life miserable . I feel ' he says , that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together , in some struggle with the grim phantasm , FEAR Prospero and his revellers ignored the ravages of the Red Death - pretended they were immune and invulnerable within his castle 's walls Their denial of reality is typical among some people during the Cold War : those who could afford built their own underground , self-sustaining bomb shelters where they could live indefinitely in the event of a nuclear annihilation . In the case of Usher , he pretended to ignore the imagined sounds from the crypt where Madeline lay entombed , more afraid perhaps , of what he would find upon uncovering her coffin . Perhaps it was his own morbid fear of her sister 's illness that kept him from finding out . It will be noted that during her last days , Roderick Usher seldom ventured in her sister 's...

5 pages

39.0 KB

Free sing-up