In this essay, two stories “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” will be analyzed focusing on how Edgar Allan Poe employs the themes of physical and mental sickness to reflect fear, mystery as well as death.
Both stories present many similarities in which the characters are not only physically ill but also mentally and this insanity can be related to the tragic life of the author. Poe faced many problems in his life such as losing his parents at an early age, not getting on well with his adoptive parents, and his wife’s death. These dramatic events increased the feeling of isolation and lack of affection that shaped his personality. This is reflected in the characters of both stories as Poe portrays them as a mirror of himself. Hence, Poe depicts characters who suffer from an unnamed disease and this aspect can be related to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory that gives reasons to their madness causing them a distorted vision of reality. This madness is a key symbol in the Gothic and appears in both stories as Poe was fascinated by the darkest side of the human mind and the presence of the supernatural, the unconscious. The importance of the mind is transmitted by the unnamed narrator who is unreliable because they tell the events from the point of view of being mentally sick.
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Firstly, I will analyze the story “The Fall of the House of Usher. It begins with an unnamed narrator arriving at Roderick Usher’s house, his friend from childhood since he had received a letter asking for his help. Thereby, taking into consideration Roderick’s behavior, he seems to be a partly rational and conscious person at the beginning; however, after not having seen each other for ages, the narrator finds his friend very different as it is quoted: “In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence—an inconsistency (...) —an excessive nervous agitation” (Poe, 1839, 8). Roderick is described with the traits of an unhealthy person such as having a cadaverous complexion and being pallid. He is extremely nervous and this is portrayed using a figure of speech, a hyperbole to put emphasis on his insanity and make it sound much more dramatic: “Surely, man had never before so altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!” (8).
Furthermore, Roderick seems to suffer from a depressive disorder as he has no interest in any kind of social activities or contact said here: “(..) the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth” (10). For the past years, the only company was his sister Madeline Usher as it is uttered here: “(…) much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to (…) a tenderly beloved sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth” (10).
In addition to these symptoms of depression, he must be a mentally ill person whose thoughts are troubled by fear and death as is mentioned here: “I shall perish, said he, I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results” (9). It is undeniable that Roderick is sick, and he also expects that based on his family’s history of illness as it is said in the following lines: “(…) he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy—a mere nervous affection” (9).
Notwithstanding, he is not the only one sick since Roderick’s twin sister, Madeline Usher is also ill: “The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and (…) a partially cataleptic character were the unusual diagnosis” (11). Madeline’s illness seems to be more physical rather than psychological than his brother Roderick's because their bodies and minds must be connected due to the special affinity between twins, that is Roderick and Madeline are represented as the two faces of the same person – the mental and the physical, respectively. That is why it can be demonstrated that the real character is Roderick whereas Madeline is only a mental image of Roderick who can also endure paranoid schizophrenia with symptoms of auditory hallucinations as can be seen: “While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared” (10).
The mystery of Madeline being a ghostly hallucination can be supported by the fact that the narrator hardly sees her, and they do not interact throughout the story. These abnormalities in his behavior inflame his hypersensitive senses as described in these statements: “He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; (…) and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror” (9). This over-acuteness of the senses makes him hear his dead sister believe that he buried her alive as it can be seen: “Not hear it? — yes, I hear it, and have heard it. (…) We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute?” (24).
Surprisingly, although throughout the story Roderick has been portrayed as the madman and insane person, now the unnamed narrator is unreliable and also a madman who suffers from a mental disease with symptoms of hallucinations as it can be perceived here: “Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman! (...) I tell you that she now stands without the door!” (24). The narrator does not only seem to imagine things, but he also seems to be so confused even thinking that Roderick’s illness has passed on him: “I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, (…) as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that it infected me” (18).
Thus, Madeline’s life is a mystery although there are theories such as the one developed by Jodey Castricano in his book “Cryptomimesis” that assert that Madeline Usher is not a real person at all, but just the conception of the narrator and Roderick’s imagination and a representation of the irrational part. This fact can be explained with the psychoanalytic theory as according to Sigmund Freud, there is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact too uncomfortable to accept and unconsciously rejects it insisting that it is not true. That is the reason why his thinking is distorted and as a consequence, he has lost touch with reality.
In a nutshell, Roderick’s illness has to do with his mental health, and being tormented by his fear makes him pass away.
I will also analyze these mental disorders in the second story “The Tell-Tale Heart”. The story starts in extreme res since there is nothing after this first speech of the narrator directly addressing the reader to draw their attention as it is mentioned: “IT’S TRUE! YES, I HAVE BEEN ILL, very ill. But why do you say that I have lost control of my mind, why do you say that I am mad? (Poe, 1843, 1).
The narrator defends his sanity despite having killed an old man just because of having a “vulture eye”. There is a paradox when he utters that he even loves the old man, but he is so obsessed with a facial aspect, one of his eyes that he decides to kill the man as it can be seen: “There was no reason for what I did. I did not hate the old man; I even loved him. He had never hurt me. I did not want his money. I think it was his eye” (1).
The narrator describes how he sets up the plan to murder the old man, his roommate by denying his insanity and providing a rational explanation for his irrational behavior based on his precision to murder as it can be appreciated here: “So you think that I am mad? A madman cannot plan. (…) So, I am mad, you say? You should have seen how careful I was to put the body where no one could find it” (2-3).
Additionally, the narrator claims to have a disease that causes hypersensitivity which is a similar motif mentioned in “The Fall of the House of Usher” as it can be seen: “Indeed, the illness only made my mind, my feelings, my senses stronger, more powerful. My sense of hearing especially became more powerful” (1).
Poe normally describes characters with an unnamed disease, in this case, the unnamed narrator could suffer from paranoid schizophrenia whose major symptoms are auditory hallucinations, which is why it is evident that he is truly mad hearing the heartbeat of the dead man beneath the floorboards. This is said in those statements: “My head hurt and there was a strange sound in my ears. (…) Suddenly I knew that the sound was not in my ears, it was not just inside my head. (...) But why does his heart not stop beating?! (4). The beating could even be the sound of the narrator’s own heart and his uncontrolled imagination leads him to confess his crime: “I pointed at the boards and cried, “Yes! Yes, I killed him. Pull up the boards and you shall see! I killed him” (4).
In this story, it could also be seen the mechanism of defense proposed by Freud denying that he is mentally ill although he kills that man without any reason. He hears things that others do not hear, and this is caused by the mental disorder called schizophrenia making him experience confusing thoughts and behaviors which distort his view of reality. Therefore, the unnamed narrator is unreliable and repeatedly tries to convince the audience he has not gone mad though his actions prove otherwise.
All things considered, we can observe how Poe in his short Gothic tales, reflects physical deformities in the characters that indicate also psychological or moral convolution since they are afraid of death. Thanks to the supernatural elements, there is some mystery by considering the irrational part, the unconscious that we cannot control what he calls ‘dark mind’. This is achieved with the use of an unknown unreliable narrator that tells the events with hesitation and what comes from his sick mind.
Bibliography
- Poe, Edgar Allan. The Fall of the House of Usher, José Menéndez, 1839. www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Poe/Usher.pdf
- Poe, Edgar Allan. The Tell-Tale Heart,1843. https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the_tell-tale_heart_0.pdf
- Freud, Sigmund. Human Psychology: Defence Mechanism. 1894. https://www.britannica.com/topic/defense-mechanism
- Castricano, Jodey. Cryptomimesis: The Gothic and Jacques Derrida's Ghost Writing. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.
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