Let me start with saying I love Poe's poetry and have not read any of Poe's short stories except the Tell-Tale Heart, which it you you enjoyed this piece I suggest reading that one. My favorite Poe poems are Annabel Lee and A Dream With a Dream (so I think you should check those out too). For some reason I have always found Poe an interesting character he has a lot of mystery to him such as the speculation about his death, some people say he suffered from depression and some feel he may have been an alcoholic. If he was any of these I think it had a wonderful effect on his writing.
The Fall of the House of Usher is very interesting because it makes you think. The end happens so quickly that I wasn't sure if any of the events really happened. Poe has a way of confusing at least me with the way the end was written. I think the end makes you question the narrator's sanity. Did any of the story really happen?? Can you imagine someone running up to you in a panic swearing that he spent a week in a crazy guys house and the guy's sister died, so they buried her, then she came alive and fell on the guy and they were both died, so they (the person telling you the story) ran away and as soon as they left the house it came crumbling down. I would probably laugh at the person. I can just imagine the narrator running to the nearest place and telling the story and everyone laughing at him and saying "The Usher house has been vacant for 10 years" or "The Usher house burn down 10 years ago."
My major concern with this piece was the last paragraph on page 104 where it says "I had learned too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words that the entire family lay in direct line of descent, and had always with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain." I briefly mention my interruption of this quote in class and will mention it again. I believe that there is a hint of incest going on in this family. I don't know if any one has any education on family trees, but I have a little my grandmother has traced our family back a long way in fact to John Rolfe and Pocahontas any way back to my point the Paragraph says that the family is in direct line from the descent. If you were to draw a normal family tree it branches out pretty wide with husbands, wives, children, aunts, uncles etc. but if you consider a family tree were the sister and brother have a child or two children and so on and so forth the tree doesn't branch out it is in direct line with the grandparents, maybe I over thought this, but this was the first thing I thought when I read it. I also see Erin's point with the ending of a family, but how realistic is that because that means their are no Aunts, Uncles or Cousin nothing left from the Usher family. I find this weird because my family on one side (my father's side) is very large and on my mother's side is kind of small. On my dad's side of the family I have 3 uncles (my dad's brothers) and two Aunts (my dad's sisters) they all have spouses and children. With all the them I have 16 or more cousins and 18 or more second cousins. My mom's side she has two brothers who have 2 children each. I find the Usher family weird also because wasn't it common to have a lot of children back then but then again maybe I'm wrong.
Sorry it's so long. I had a lot on my mind.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I also thought that, "The Fall of the House of Usher" was very interesting too. The events that took place in that house were a little crazy, and I wish that someone new the truth about what really happened in that house. I also agree with you about incest possibley being in the family, I thought the same thing when I read it. I also thought you made a good point when you talked about family trees. If the sister was all that was left of his family, maybe there was incest.
Post a Comment