What is Life? There is no clear-cut definition for it. Many people have their definition of what life is and the majority think that happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence, and death is the complete opposite of it because it brings pain and fear. While death is inevitable but not the goal of man Poe Allen illustrates the fear and pain death brings out in people and how it sometimes affects our thoughts, through both The Raven and The Fall Of The House of Usher using the characters.
The thought of death sometimes creates fear in the minds of so many people, for most people come across thoughts like that when they attend funerals and realize that life is too short for some it happens after they have encountered a near-death experience and some it usually happens when sickness comes and treatments needs need done as Roderick Usher was sick so he seeks help from the narrator. Roderick Usher reached out as the narrator stated “A letter, however, had reached me in a distant part of the country, a letter from him which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply” (Poe 1). Roderick indeed appears to be a sick man. He suffers from an 'acuteness of the senses,' or hyper-sensitivity to light, sound, taste, and tactile sensations; he feels that he will die of the fear he feels. He is afraid of dying and fear is a constant reminder of the worth in one's life, and so the narrator tries to help him get his mind off all this fear and gloom by poring over the literature, music, and art that Roderick so loves. It doesn’t seem to help. That is exactly what fear of death does, it creates unrest in the minds of so many people, and, that sometimes makes it impossible for them to sleep. Heightened fear and anxiety related to pain may result in emotional and behavioral avoidance responses causing disability, distress, and depression and Usher is a slave to terror, notes the narrator. He feels he will die from it, and quite soon. It’s not even the illness itself that’s so bad but the fear of all the events which may cause him pain. According to Usher, this fear is what will be the death of him. About seven or eight nights after putting Madeline in the tomb, the narrator feels nervous and scared and can’t get to sleep. There is a storm raging, but in the quiet interludes, he thinks he can hear eerie sounds coming from the mansion. Fear of death creates images in the minds of people and makes them see things that aren’t there just as it did to Usher and that sometimes brings out the emotional pain of losing someone.
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Fear and pain are slightly related because they come together, pain comes after fear and in cases like this pain is the most difficult to get rid of. It comes as a constant reminder of the people you have lost, thinking about them brings back the pain you felt after losing them. Losing someone means everything, you’re happy this minute and the next you’re sad. All important moments in your life going forward will always be tainted with pain and sadness. You would always remember how they aren’t here to share it with you just as it happened to Poe. Poe writes, “Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore” (Line 83). He talks about the pain he feels about the love of his life that he lost and often he thinks about the love of his life. It is natural to feel the pain of loss, seeing that all humans must die one day, it is something one must experience if not more than once in a lifetime. What matters sometimes is the thought towards it, and what people think about death.
Some people don’t even think about it, while some people try not to think about it just as death is looming, most people often think about death as they grow old they wonder what comes after death while some try to remember the people they’ve lost just as the narrator did in raven, Poe writes “over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore” (2). He’s lost Lenore represents idealized love, beauty, truth, or hope in a better world. She is 'rare and radian. For some people that is more than what their loved ones are to them and when they lose them, they lose a little bit of their sanity. Generally, the emotional pain sometimes ends once an individual can go about their days with increased acceptance of their loss and an ability to experience positive emotions. This can take any amount of time, it depends on the person and how he/she is coping with the loss.
And Poe Allen communicates with all this how death can bring out the worst in people through fear and pain and make some people lose a little bit of their sanity in some cases. Sometimes the only remedy for situations is to be strong and get over it, it may take different time for different people because everybody heals in different pains and in cases of emotional pain it needs more time to be strong and move on might be the only option then
Work Cited
- Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The Poe Museum, www.poemuseum.org/the-fall-of-the-house-of-usher, pp. 1-11. Accessed 1 Oct. 2019. ---. “The Raven.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48860/the-raven. Accessed 1 Oct. 2019.
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