View source for Edgar Allen Poe

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'''Close Readings:'''

''The Fall of the House of Usher''

The narrator begins by describing the house of Usher that he is approaching. He states that it’s a very gloomy and mysterious place. After the description, the narrator says that he is there because his friend, Roderick Usher, had asked him to come there out of urgency. It is here that the narrator reveals that the Usher family always suffers and only one of every generation has survived to the next. As he enters the house, he notes how the inside is also very dreary and unsettling. When Roderick greets him, the narrator immediately notes how tired and worn out he looks. Roderick then tells the narrator that he is very nervous and fearful. He then says that his sister, Madeline, has contracted an illness that none of the physicians can figure out. Madeline dies and Roderick enlists the help of the narrator to bury her in the basement tomb underneath the house. He is afraid that the physician’s will try to recover her corpse to conduct experiments on it. The narrator then spends several days at the house to try and console Roderick. One day, when the narrator is reading to the Roderick, he hears Roderick muttering under his breath. As the narrator gets closer, he hears Roderick talking about how he’s been hearing noises from the tombs for days and that they must have buried Madeline alive. Soon after, Madeline bursts into the room covered in blood and rushes at Roderick to attack him. Roderick dies in fear and Madeline dies after. The narrator rushes out of the house and as he flees, the house crumbles to the ground behind him.

This story is very heavy with dark themes and spiritual imagery. Words such as: dull, dark, ghastly, gloom, perish, fear, dread, and haunted are just some of the examples of dark themed words used throughout this narrative. Excluding the dreary scene of the house, the mysterious atmosphere of the story is already very relevant in due to the fact that the narrator reveals that, until the letter, he had not heard from Roderick since they were children. In the letter, Roderick says that he still considers the narrator to be his close friend even though they have not seen each other in years. The mysterious theme continues with the events such as Madeline’s unknown illness and her burial in the house’s own tomb. Then themes such as guilt and fear take over when Roderick realizes that they may have buried Madeline alive. That’s taken over by anger when Madeline kills Roderick and is then once again replaced by fear by both Roderick and the narrator who flees the scene. There is a constant sense of dread throughout this story and no common sense of what may happen due to the spiritual references. Therefore, “mysterious” is the central theme of the narrative. 

''The Cask of Amontillado''

This narrative begins with the narrator telling the readers that a man named Fortunato has greatly insulted him and he plans to get revenge. He then reveals that Fortunato is connoisseur of wine and is going to use that to his advantage. He approaches Fortunato at a carnival in a disguise. He tells Fortunato that he has acquired a pipe that would pass for Amontillado, a Spanish drink. The narrator then jests him by telling that if he is busy, then he will ask a man named Luchesi, some sort of rival to Fortunato, to compare the drinks. Fortunato becomes annoyed and tells the narrator that he will taste the drink. The narrator reveals that he has made sure that no one will interrupt his plan because he sent his servants off to this carnival. The walls of the vaults in which they travel to retrieve the pipe were covered in nitre and caused Fortunato to cough. The narrator insists that they should leave due to the nitre affecting Fortunato’s health but he refuses. The narrator then gives him wine to drink. As they reach a crypt, human bones are decorated on three of the four walls. The fourth wall’s bones had fallen on the ground. The narrator tells Fortunato that the indent in the wall where the fourth wall was exposed was where the Amontillado is. Fortunto is intoxicated at this point and goes to where the Amontillado is. The narrator then suddenly chains Fortunato to a stone. The narrator taunts Fortunato as he walls up the entrance to the crypt to trap Fortunato in alive. The entire time, Fortunato is screaming for help until he suddenly laughs and asks the narrator surely this is a joke. Finally, the narrator finishes walling up the crypt and replaces the bones on the fourth wall.

The narrator in this story is very demented. The story begins with him talking about how will definitely get revenge against Fortunato for insulting him. We do not know how he insulted the narrator but whatever it was was apparently bad enough for the narrator to plan his murder of Fortunato. To want to kill Fortunato for anything seems very extreme and as the story progresses, we realize that the narrator has already planned it all out and will go through with it. Even with this knowledge, the narrator spends much of the story trying to get Fortunato to not come with him to the crypt, knowing that Fortunato will refuse, unbeknownst to him that he is being led to his death. It is very dreadful as well that the narrator decided to just trap Fortunato down in the crypt alive to slowly die out. It is assumed that he suffered too, as he died because of the nitre and general dampness of the tomb. All of this was inflicted onto Fortunato by the narrator just because of an insult. It is clear that the narrator must be unstable in some way to be angered in such a way so easily. The narrator spends the entire narrative toying with Fortunato, knowing that he will kill him in the crypt. The readers know this as well. Even as Fortunato was screaming for mercy, the narrator simply left him there with no evidence to what happened to him and why. The narrator is unapologetically cruel and this story frames everything that supports it. 

''Annabel Lee''

This is a short poem about the death of the narrator’s lover, Annabel Lee.

This poem tells of how much the narrator loved Annabel Lee wth lines such as: “But we loved with a love that was more than love-.“ Early in the poem it is revealed that Annabel Lee dies with the lines: “So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me.” The narrator believe that the angels in heaven were jealous of their love and took Annabel Lee away so the couple would not be happier than the angels. The narrator refutes this by saying that he and Annabel Lee will always love each other and ends with him lying down by her tomb. This poem was written shortly after the death of Poe’s wife and is clearly a tribute to her. His wife was his 13-year-old cousin which is reflected in the poem’s line: “I was a child and she was a child.” Despite the fact that she was Poe’s husband, it is clear that Poe still loved her dearly as his wife.