Feminist Perspective of the Role of Lady Madeline

Roderick and Madeline demonstrate tell-tale signs of madness--anxiety, nervousness, depression. In this story they are impacted by their gloomy surroundings of the estate that has been passed down through the long but struggling line of Ushers and is now given only to the final two, Madeline and her twin brother Roderick. The house takes in a diseased and sinister appearance, dark and peculiar surrounded by fallen trees and murky ponds. The main reason why the Usher bloodline dwindled down so quickly was due to the evil house intoxicating their minds and making them lose their senses, or in Madeleine's case a incurable sickness of the body and not mind. The twins symbolize conscious and unconscious, they showcase a sense of balance and use each other as

Corman’s film implied that the house itself was the monster. Viewers saw this throughout the film, by the objects falling mysteriously, the houses’ constant trembling, the eerie sounds etc. The role of the narrator was eliminated in the film, so the viewers had to make conclusions and descriptions based on what the viewers might have seen. This is a challenging task because the viewers were so caught up in the movie that the viewers might have not noticed a few things which would have otherwise been explained and described in the short story. In the short story Roderick asked for Phillip, through a letter. Roderick was sick and wanted comfort and company. Poe’s story was captivating and creepy but Corman changed the story and made Madeline and Phillip lovers. The story and the film both depicted the siblings’ illness the same way. The film also implied that Roderick may have viewed Philip as a romantic rival, which suggested an incestuous relationship between Madeline and Roderick. They were not regarded as twins in the film and were not at all similar. In the film, Phillip was preoccupied with Madeline and fear. In the story, he spent most of his time reading, painting, and listening to Roderick’s music. His whole purpose of being there was to cheer Roderick up. In the story, Madeline was barely mentioned or known of until the end. In the film, she was a critical character and essential to the plot of the movie. The foreshadowing in the film was much more

creepy the narrator of the story insane Roderick Madeline both have illness the narrator is

Though written by a male author, “The Fall of the House of Usher” also represents an important role for women, which in many ways contrasts that of the women in the aforementioned story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In Edgar Allen Poe’s work, there seems to be a dawning of the day/evolving role of women from that of servitude and oppression to one of liberation and enlightenment. Madeline Usher, sister to the main character, Roderick Usher, serves as the face of the evolving role of women. Instead of sitting back and allowing the men of the society, as well as her brother push her around, Madeline uses her power to seemingly give herself a seat at the table of control. She even forces Roderick to seemingly have to depend on her! Ultimately, Madeline brings down Roderick, the house of Usher, and ends the Usher bloodline. This opposing view of women is quite different from other gothic fiction short stories. She seems to reject the stereotypical role of women

In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” there are three characters the narrator, Roderick Usher, and Madeline Usher. The story starts with the narrator arriving at the Usher family home where both Roderick and Madeline live, Roderick is both physically and mentally ill and Madeline is just mentally ill. The Usher family

Madeline, who is Roderick’s sister and wife, represents the incestuous romance, which connects to Poe’s love life with his young cousin. Brett Zimmerman makes the connection with the statement of “the In light of our new understanding of Madeline as the allegorical-phrenological representative of perverse sexuality, we may have to revise our understanding of Poe's Platonic and idolatrous attitudes toward women.” The image of incest is again repeated with the reflection on the lake, where the twins are on top of one another, only Madeline is weaker than Roderick just like the reflection. Brett Zimmerman displays this when he writes “the narrator has already experienced a visual analogue of the sister atop the brother in the image of the House astride its reflection in the tarn.” Critics consider the house itself to symbolize Roderick, while the paler, weaker reflection represents Madeline. Madeline represents the incestuous romance, the bigotry of Poe’s time, and the constant decay of households he shared with the women in his life.

In the Veldt, the parents realized “Why, they’ve locked it from the outside!” (Bradbury 13). The kids had locked their parents in the nursery, in Africa. They were so afraid of their parents shutting off the nursery and the whole house, they plotted a murder on them. In the Fall of the House of Usher, “Lady Madeline of Usher fro upon the threshold - then with a low moaning crying, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother… bore to him to the floor corpse” (Poe 47). She was supposedly dead, and buried - in a tomb underneath the house - now coming back as a ghost for the death of her brother, Roderick Usher. After the death of both her and her brother, since there was no one else in the family tree to take care of the House of Usher, it had fallen into complete rubel. Imagination took over all these characters in these three different stories through their thoughts, actions, and events that

All the details hinting at Roderick and Madeline's incestuous relationship are used by Poe to hide his guilt. They act as fluff to distract the reader from the crime taking place and the twisted relationship the narrator has with the siblings. Neither Rodrick nor the narrator go unscathed by their guilty consciousness in burying Madeline Usher

On the night the narrator arrives, Roderick's sister Madeline finally passes away. Roderick is very disturbed by his sister's death. Roderick begins to go insane after the burial of his sister. Stricken with guilt, he starts to believe that she is still alive in her tomb. The narrator tries to calm Roderick by reading him a story entitled "Mad Twist." This story is very ironic to the situation that the narrator is resolving. "It was, however, the only book immediately at hand: and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now

Roderick expresses his love for his sister that he shades emotions towards her. He also describes how she is very ill and he would not know what he would do with her. Madeline is overcome by her illness and could have been with drove her into the state of being dead-like. The next time, that Madeline is brought up, she has died and the narrator and Roderick are burning her in the Usher's underground tomb. The mansion is a prison but also a sanctuary for Madeline. She has spent her birth to death there. Never mingling with anyone else but her brother that would have soon been her mate. Within their family line of incest, it was in their fate to fall for each

Furthermore, she dies and come back to life.Usher said his sister”Lady Madeline who is no more. A strong wind blew open the window and threw Usher on the floor. Madeline seemed to hover like a ghost. Madeline pale blood-stained form fell upon her brother Usher and bore him to the floor- a corpse.

Bearers who emphasize the narrator in the story see the irony of a rational mind yielding to the irrational; for readers who emphasize Roderick and the house, the narrator supports the truth of the strange narrator’s report of what finally happened. How, one can ask could the emaciated Madeline possibly have the strength to break through a coffin lid and pushed opened of “missive iron” and “immense weight”? How indeed, could she have evn survived in the

His reserve had been always excessive and habitual,” which in reality creates a sense of mystery of what their relation really is. There seems to be a great extent of division among the two even if they were ‘friends’ and as the protagonist also says about Roderick being reserved for the time being. Another evident information about isolation was shown in the text, “A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device,” with the protagonist so heavily focused on Madeline but is envisioned from the perspective of Roderick. This is where the split personality comes into play where it changes from the perspective of the person from the beginning of the story to Roderick’s own personality. The way it was described truly transpires of how isolated the scenery was as it says how “immensely long” and or how there was no obstacles, “without interruption.” Finally, there seems to be no escape as the character must be trapped in its own world realizing how toxic the environment is, “The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within.” There seems to be no evident way to escape as the windows are out of reach and very far; which

Another noteworthy idea in The Fall of the House of Usher is the character attributes of both Roderick and Madeline Usher. Their characteristics are not opposites, but more so two halves of one person. Roderick suffers from a “mental disorder which oppressed him” (70) and his sister’s illness is clearly more physical. The bond between the two characters is more evidence that it's possible that Madeline didn’t fully exist from the start. The events that surround her are distinctly supernatural and otherworldly, for example, her return from the dead. It is possible that the

Doctors are unable to give a definite diagnosis. They suspect that it might be catalepsy. During the narrator's visit Madeline dies and he helps Roderick bury her corpse. The speaker notices her rosy cheeks and it suddenly dawns on him that Madeline and Roderick were twins. One night the visitor is raised from his sleep by Roderick who is in a fit of frenzy. In order to placate his friend, he reads him a story- "Mad Trist" by Sir Launcelot Canning. As he reads it, he hears sounds that correlate with the events from the story. At first he treats them as a figment of his imagination but they become more and more distinct and believable. Roderick becomes pale and starts to talk something under his breath, as if hypnotised. As the speaker listens to the mutterings, he gets to know that the eponymous hero is afraid that they have buried Madeline alive and that she rose from the grave and is standing behind the door. At this point the door is opened and Madeline comes in: "There was blood upon her white robes[...] then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her horrible and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had dreaded."