Roderick Usher did in fact entomb his twin, his own sister while still alive. One at first would argue for Usher who could have thougth his sister dead due to her illness of which makes her appear as she has dies because she was subject to long cataleptic states. Her character of cataleptic states would have left Madeline motionless and due to loss of muscle control it could appear as if she stop breathing, or maybe she did for a while. However, the end the story unfolds and Usher reveals the horror that he burried his sister alive, and knowingly alive at that. To conclude the story of the fall of the house of Usher it ends in the irony that his sister seemly escapes, two weeks after being entombed and appears before Usher upon his confession of buring his twin alive. Madeline then is said to die "violently" upon her brother, probably in a catalatic state. Her in lies the first irony, Madeline seems to be alive after two weeks then she dies so sudden upon assumed escape and then dies from the very reason her brother, Usher, entombed her in the first place. The second irony lies in that Usher upon the horror of seeing his sister agains after he tried to murder her by burying her alive in the tomb, thus dies from his own fear upon seeing his sister die before his eyes. The final event of the story concluded with both twin dead and now the house crumbles and dies along with them.
In all this it is up to the reader to suspose and deciede upon your own judgement and the information from the story to determine wheather Madeline was murdered only in that the event of her death is the direct result of Roderick Usher.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Yeah I really hate how the details in the story were not specific and did not tell us why Madeline died. Why is because her anger literally wore her heart out, or was it that after going two week without food or water that she some what dropped dead from exhaustion, or was it her illness what finally got ahold of her? One could only assume though that if a person still has color in their cheeks that they are still alive. I think Roderick jsut wants to get his grief over with already and pretend she's dead in hopes that she dies in her tomb giving him not a single chance to see her dead body.
ReplyDeleteI agree in that Roderick knew his sister was alive. I think thsi because towards the end of the story we see that Roderick shows similar symptoms as madeline's diagnosis. Because they are twins, they share many qualities and have a connection that lets them feel what the other feels. If he too shared the illness, he would know that the stiffness was a symptom of the illness and that madeline was not dead.
ReplyDelete