2006 及 6 班 4 组 刘波，李方淑，范玉明，徐孟香，张青，李富民

1. 2006及6班4组 刘波，李方淑，范玉明，徐孟香，张青，李富民

2. About the story • Themes • Writing skills • Deep meanings

3. The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. The story was first published in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine in September 1839. It was heavily revised before being included in a collection of his fiction entitled Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. • The story begins at dusk on an autumn day in an earlier time, probably the 19th Century. The place is a forbidding mansion in a forlorn countryside. The mansion, covered by a fungus, is encircled by a small lake, called a tarn, that resembles a moat. A bridge across the tarn provides access to the mansion.

4. Plot summary • Short story begins with the narrator arriving at his boyhood friend Roderick Usher’s house in the middle of the night. • The narrator’s presence has been requested by Roderick to help him with his existing mental illness. • During the first evening in the old castle the narrator encounters Roderick’s sister, a ghostly woman. • Days pass by and the old friends in engage in conversation and the enjoyment of the arts. • One night Roderick exclaims that his sister has died and could he help him place his dead sister in a coffin till they have a proper burial. • The final evening the narrator is horrified to discover that Roderick encased his twin sister alive. • The sister escapes to kill Roderick and the narrator fleas the house of Usher.

5. characters • Narrator--- a friend of the master of the House of Usher. The narrator has been described as an objective witness to the events in the story, with some suggesting he represents rationality. • Roderick Usher---the master of the house. He suffers from a depressing malaise characterized by strange behavior. • Madeline Usher---twin sister of Roderick. She also suffers from a strange illness. After apparently dying, she rises from her coffin. • Servant---domestic in the Usher household. He attends to the narrator's horse. • Valet---domestic in the Usher household who conducts the narrator to Roderick Usher's room. • Physician---one of several doctors who treat Madeline Usher.

6. The relationship between brother and sister • 孪生兄妹（相貌一样） • 哥哥实际上是另一个妹妹,而妹妹就是另一个哥哥。在他们的关系上,哥哥占有主动的地位,妹妹只是哥哥的一个映像,就像厄舍古屋在山池中的倒影一样。当玛德琳从叙述者前走过的时候,叙述者没有对其容貌做任何描述。这与前面他对哥哥五官和行为的详细描写形成鲜明的对比。古屋的倒影无需过多描述,因为它和古屋一模一样;同样,作为哥哥的一个倒影,一个映像,玛德琳的外貌也无须多加着墨。罗得瑞克深爱自己的妹妹,即另一个自我,这正与古希腊神话中那个因恋上自己在水中的倒影而憔悴死去的美少年纳西斯的表现如出一辙,是一种自恋行为。实际上,与其说罗得瑞克因为爱上另一个自我而表现为自恋,不如说是他极度自恋的病态心理导致他爱上妹妹。

7. The Function of Setting - Exterior • The “house of Usher” has two meanings • The physical dwelling • The family line, or lineage • “the entire family lay in the direct line of descent” • The house is also a type of character in the story • Like the family, it is of “an excessive antiquity” The landscape is overgrown and ragged • On the front down the middle is “a barely perceptible fissure” going in “a zigzag direction”

8. Interior Setting • Gothic architecture • “windows were long, narrow and pointed” • “feeble gleams of encrimsoned light” • “dark draperies” • “atmosphere of sorrow” • Roderick lives upstairs (mind) • Madeleine is entombed below ground (body)

9. Main theme The central theme of "The Fall of the House of Usher" is terror that arises from the complexity and multiplicity of forces that shape human destiny. Dreadful, horrifying events result not from a single, uncomplicated circumstance but from a collision and intermingling of manifold, complex circumstances.

10. Other themes • Mental illness • Evil • Isolation • Failure to Adapt • Madness • Mystery

11. Symbolism • The Fungus-Ridden Mansion: Decline of the Usher family. • The Collapsing Mansion: Fall of the Usher family. • The “Vacant eye-like” Windows of the Mansion: (1) Hollow, cadaverous eyes of Roderick Usher; (2) Madeline Usher’s cataleptic gaze; (3) the vacuity of life in the Usher mansion. • The Tarn, a Small Lake Encircling the Mansion and Reflecting Its Image: (1) Madeline as the twin of Roderick, reflecting his image and personality; (2) the image of reality which Roderick and the narrator perceive; though the water of the tarn reflects details exactly, the image is upside down, leaving open the possibility that Roderick and the narrator see a false reality; (3) the desire of the Ushers to isolate themselves from the outside world. • The Bridge Over the Tarn: The narrator as Roderick Usher’s only link to the outside world. • The name Usher: An usher is a doorkeeper. In this sense, Roderick Usher opens the door to a frightening world for the narrator. • The Storm: The turbulent emotions experienced by the characters.

12. Word choice • During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.

13. Rhythm Besides painting a gloomy picture, the words in the paragraph also beat out a funerealrhythm–at first through the alliteration of during, dull, dark, and day, and then through the rhyming suffixes of oppressively, singularly, and melancholy.

14. Alliteration • Alliteration occurs frequently in the rest of the story, in such phrases as the following: • iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart • cadaverousness of complexion • feeble and futile struggles • certain superstitious impressions [the s in impressions does not alliterate because it has a z sound] • sensation of stupor • partially cataleptical character • wild air of the last waltz • fervid facility of his impromptus • impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet • and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher."

15. Anaphora 首语重复法 Anaphora is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of a clause or another group of words. Anaphora imparts emphasis and balance. Here are boldfaced examples from "The Fall of the House of Usher": • I looked upon the scene before me–uponthe mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain– upon the bleak walls– upon the vacant eye-like windows– upon a few rank sedges– and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees • While the objects around me– while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy– while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this — I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. • Many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it

16. Foreshadowing 伏笔 • Poe creates texts within texts • “The Haunted Palace” (poem) reflects the Usher family life in the house • “The Mad Trist” (story) parallels Madeleine’s return from the grave • The storm outside is analogous to the turmoil inside the characters in the house • The book titles in Roderick’s library are symbolic of the themes of the story

17. Unity in “Fall of the House of Usher • First and last paragraphs are mirror images of each other, creating symmetry • The texts-within-text reinforce the central theme • The house itself symbolizes the split in the family • The construction of the house reflects a “perfect adaptation of parts”

18. Deep meanings • Poe addresses the dual and conflicted nature of the Self • Mind and body are at war with each other in each of us • We try to repress one side and live without it • But we cannot achieve a harmonious existence in this way

19. thank you

20. Roderick • An artist figure • Nervous agitation • Lives in dark upstairs apartment • Cadaverous complexion • “want of moral energy” • “excessive nervous agitation” • Roderick’s mental condition is affected by his environment • “He was enchanted by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted . . . An effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.”

21. Madeleine • Illness has debilitated her • All descriptions focus on the body • “gradual wasting away of the person” • Roderick and the narrator screw down the lid of her coffin • She returns from the tomb to reclaim her twin brother, her “double” • “the huge antique panels…threw back” • She “fell heavily inward upon…her brother and…bore him to the floor a corpse