Prof. Bruce Harvey
Sample
Paper
Usher
as Narcissus: The Hazards of Introspection in Poe's "The Fall of the House
of Usher"
Narcissism is usually considered a character disorder, one of egocentrism
and excessive love of oneself. The
term itself comes from Greek mythology, wherein Narcissus sees his reflection in
a mirror and falls deeply in love with himself.
While several themes are at work in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of
the House of Usher," a major one is that of Usher's own battle with this
"malady." Self-love is
represented on many different levels within the character, and Poe goes to some
effort to illustrate its harmful effect on everyone around Usher.
The issue is important to Poe, who appears to
want to make a statement contrary to what some of his literary contemporaries
have expressed in their own work. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, among others,
stressed the importance of self-reliance, and of looking only inward or to
nature for inspiration rather than depending upon relationships with others.
Emerson exhorts his readers to break out from the mundane everyday lives
they lead, and Thoreau takes his mentor's idea even further by endorsing a
complete withdrawal from society.
The first image of narcissism put forth in the story comes in the
discussion of Usher's heritage. The
"family tree" has no branches, only a trunk from top to bottom, with a
single direct line of descent from father to son.
The family name is rarely and never for long applicable to another
household. This suggests an innate
flaw: a reluctance by Usher's ancestors to share their existence with other
people. The family has isolated
itself from the rest of the world so as not to be exposed to intrusive outside
influences. Because his ancestors
loved themselves so much, they were unmoved by the need to reproduce. They choose to be satisfied with what they had got, so
challenges to reach higher levels of awareness are ignored, stagnating growth
for the individuals as well as the family as a whole.
One can hardly blame Usher himself for the hand
he has been dealt, but he clearly has done nothing to break the chain, and, in
fact, sees fit to end the linear sequence by not producing an heir to the family
name. Obviously, the consequences
of this separation of the family from society have a disastrous result.
Roderick Usher lacks "collateral issue" (140), and the
disintegration of the family is the direct result.
The narrator further comments that the name "House of Usher"
has been merged over time to apply both to the family and the crumbling edifice
in which they dwell. As the family
is falling apart, so, too, is the house itself.
The building is described not only as frightening and depressing, but
also as being in an advanced state of decay.
The house also possesses what the narrator at
first imagines to be a peculiar atmosphere over the estate, independent of the
changes in the surrounding climate. This
perception is later confirmed by Usher, who places some blame for his illness on
a "condensation of an atmosphere of their own" over the property.
The dark clouds over family and home are further evidence of Poe's
concern regarding over-indulgence of the self.
Nature has recognized the family's effort to exist apart from the world,
and has complied by casting a gloomy pall over the land.
Poe repeatedly uses the tool of mirror imagery
to elicit this theme of narcissistic inbreeding.
Early in the story, the house is shown to be reflected in the
"tarn" that lies beside it. The
building also has an appearance very similar to its tenant.
Each has "web-like" hair (141, 142), the windows of the house
are "eyelike," and both structure and man has been ravaged by the
passage of time. This represents a
vivid comparison to the young Greek, and the image applies to both sides of the
duality between the human and material House of Usher.
Furthermore, Roderick looks much like his sister Madeline.
Interestingly, it is not revealed until late in the story that the two
are twins. The narrator's attention
is "arrested" (151) by this discovery, implying that the similarity
was remarkable. (When the narrator makes this observation, incidentally,
Madeline is supposedly dead. The narrator has more than once described
Roderick's countenance as "cadaverous.")
The three main subjects of the tale, the house
and the Usher siblings, are mere versions of themselves.
Brother and sister are reflected in each other, and together they are
reflected in the pool. This doubling of characters in a Poe story is normally used
in an effort to take attention away from the "action" and place it
more in the "art," but here it is used to show the nature of the
characters as tortured self-lovers, constantly reminded of their desperate
situation. The similar appearance
of the siblings also highlights some of Usher's features that make him an
example of Poe's caution toward excessive self-reliance.
Among the symptoms (causes?) of Usher's illness
is a "morbid acuteness of the senses" (143).
All of Roderick's senses are extremely delicate, and this is a chief
source of his misery. This is a crucial point in Poe's writing: what better
opportunity for an individual to experience beauty in its ideal form than in a
condition of this nature? At the
very peak of heightened awareness, the long sought epiphany (so characteristic
of Poe's stories) is finally attainable. What
a cruel irony, then, that the side-effect of this hypersensitivity is a
torturous inability to deal with the routine aspects of reality.
The result of this infirmity is a madness that
is ultimately brought on by the object whose beauty he most desires: his own
body. The narrator describes this
malady as being, as it were, genetic: "It
was, he said, a constitutional and family evil, and one for which he despaired
to find a remedy..." (143). Yet what the reader may initially believe is a genetic
disease passed down from his forebears is more likely a sexual attraction to his
twin. Here is an example of what is
perhaps the ultimate narcissism. Incest,
particularly involving a twin, is simply an avenue for self-adoration.
The narcissist is free to use his sister as a representative of his
worship, especially one with such a notable similarity of appearance to himself.
The mirror-imagery is stressed again to provide evidence of the
attraction to one's own body manifested through the relationship with the
sister.
Among the several sources of blame for the
illness from which Usher suffers are his fear and worry over his sister's own
illness. Apparently without cure or
even an accurate diagnosis as to the exact nature of the disease, Madeline has
slipped into a cataleptic condition. Her
withdrawal from the surrounding world cannot be measured because the reader is
not told what she was like before becoming ill.
Importantly, she is described as Usher's "sole companion for long
years" (144). However, Usher's
lamentation is not so much for his sister's suffering, but for his fear of being
without her, and of being the last surviving member of his ancient family.
The "passionate tears" shed by Usher as he catches a glimpse of
Madeline as she passes through the room are not brought on by sympathy for his
sister, but rather by the painful recognition of his impending loss--a loss, in
fact, of the mirror-image of himself.
Once Madeline abruptly dies, the curious
decision by Usher to maintain her corpse in a dungeon-like tomb within the house
also hints that the possibility of Usher's intention to carry on an incestuous,
necrophilial relationship with his sister, and his refusal to forsake the malady
of narcissism. The reasons behind
this decision do not seem to be logical in nature, for if Madeline is truly
dead, whatever infirmity took the life from her is irrelevant.
Ultimately, after Madeline's entombment,
Usher's condition worsens, and the narrator opines as to one aspect of his
friend's frail state: "There were times, indeed, when I thought his
increasingly agitated mind was labouring with some oppressive secret, to divulge
which he searched for the necessary courage' (151).
This is the most direct reference in the story to the existence of an
unnatural relationship between the siblings.
The narrator has alluded to this idea several times, but this time almost
makes a proclamation that Usher has something to hide.
That something is his incestuous attraction to his sister; that, in turn,
is a "cover" for his narcissism.
Usher seems to have known all along that
Madeline was, in reality, not dead. His
desperation for "finding a remedy" for his "nervous
affliction" leads him to an attempt to suppress his desire by eliminating
his sister. Knowing that the
problem lies within himself, and not in his sister, he anticipates the events
which come to pass at the end of the story with a certain eagerness.
The existential philosopher Kierkegard says "...one fears, but what
one fears, one desires" (45). Usher
seeks to end his suffering by killing not himself, but his mirror image.
The result of all these narcissistic tendencies
is, in the end, a final leap into the madness which Poe has predicted.
Poe professes in his writing to be in search of heightened awareness and
new levels of consciousness (44). Yet
he also realizes that the quest for the ideal will result in an inability to
deal with life on the levels of consciousness we have already achieved.
Like Kierkegard, he fears the madness, but seems willing to accept it if
the payoff comes in the acquisition of the purest form of the perception of
Beauty.