Roderick was the product of inbreeding which had caused him to lead a rather unhealthy life. According to Magill in the book Masterpieces of World Literature, since the Usher family had left only a direct line of descendants, the family and the house had become as one, the House of Usher(291). One can argue that this is true, but in my opinion, the relationship between the house and Roderick can be found in their descriptions. The story's narrator describes Roderick as more zombielike than human. This is due to Roderick's cadaverous facial complexion: large, luminous eyes, thin and very pallid lips, his nose of "a delicate Hebrew model," his small molded chin, broad forehead, and his soft and weblike hair(Magill 364).
Eventually, the narrator heads inside to see his friend. Roderick indeed appears to be a sick man. He suffers from an "acuteness of the senses," or hyper-sensitivity to light, sound, taste, and tactile sensations; he feels that he will die of the fear he feels. He attributes part of his illness to the fact that his sister, Madeline, suffers from catalepsy (a sickness involving seizures) and will soon die, and part of it to the belief that his creepy house is sentient (able to perceive things) and has a great power over him. He hasn’t left the mansion in years.
In Pip’s eyes, she is, “ wax-work and skeleton seemed to have darkness that moved and looked at me.” Pip observes and sees this dead woman who has come to life adding a unique twist. Miss Havisham says, “Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close.” By now, Pip is traumatized by her spooky script unlike any he had encountered. Once again, Pip describes her, “ appearance of having dropped, body and soul.” she is corpse-like woman making Pip feel utterly uncomfortable. Throughout the novel, Miss Havisham uses mostly a bitter treatment towards Pip.
Finds Roderick in house, super sick and pale, not himself. Roderick is sick with problem with nerves. Nerves are raw and sense of fear is greater than usual and is afraid of his own house. Roderick tells narrator that his sister Madeline is also sick. Narrator spends a few days at the house trying to comfort Roderick but can’t make him happy.
Owen then goes on to describe how the mental trauma becomes worse. “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, he plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.” This tells us the soldiers mind is haunted by the sight of his fellow soldier dying from the horrible gas. He is dramatizing this scene some time after it occurred, and his dreams are still filled with this unforgettable sight, which becomes a regular nightmare for the soldier. Wilfred Owen wrote this to shock the reader, and to make the reader think about what
Harvie finds it difficult to form relationships, and feels alone and depressed, especially after his wife dies and he is living in a nursing home. One night, he feels extremely depressed and, again, decides to end his life by overdosing. On his way to his room he meets a lady named Wilma. She also finds it difficult to form relationships due to being judged because of the cancerous goiter on her face. When Harvie begins talking to her, and their friendship advances he discovers that she also wants to end her life.
Clutter, Herb‟s wife, Bonnie Fox, the woman who seemed to have everything, was in fact a lifeless creature. As Capote recounts Bonnie‟s life, he explains that she commonly experienced “inexplicable despondency- seizure of grief that sent her wandering from room to room in a hand-wringing daze” (Capote 27), indicating that something was wrong with her. When Capote describes Mrs. Fox‟s room, “the room she so seldom left was austere; had the bed been made, a visitor might have thought it permanently unoccupied” (Capote 29), it becomes evident that Bonnie is an unhappy woman despite her material wealth and apparently perfect family. Contradicting the view that the community had of her, Bonnie serves as another example of the hypocrisy that influences American
She is filled with fear in her last moments, all alone. In her most final moments, as she felt herself slipping into death, she could not find a sign of God, George, or John to welcome her. Not only was she jilted in life by the two most important people in it, but also in death and by the most important man-figure of all, God. “Granny lay…staring at the point of light that was herself; her body was now only a deeper mass of shadow in an endless darkness and this darkness would curl around the light and swallow it up. God, give a sign.
Title: Make it Clever Edgar Allen Poe wrote a short story called “The House of Usher.” In this short gothic tale there are three main themes that really stood out to me: friendship, incest in the 1800’s, The first theme is Friendship; it is a very important theme that was seen in the beginning of the story. The narrator drops everything in order to answer his friend Roderick’s message to come and help cheer him up. He has a foreboding feeling as he approaches the house which is in a disheveled state, even the walls were starting to crack The next theme is morality. The Roderick twins and the house are symbolically connected by their families’ history of living in the house. The house's state of disrepair is a symbol for the moral, physical, and mental state of Roderick and his sister.
Roderick’s sister, Madeline, suffers from a similar disease but she is dying off, like “a flower without water”. When Madeline supposedly dies, Roderick and the narrator note the slight smile and flush of color on her face, making her seem alive. Roderick later claims to have heard Madeline’s faint heartbeat and breathing from the vault, leading him to believe that Madeline has not rested in peace but came back from the dead. At the end, Madeline walks to the narrator’s room and Roderick dies from the fright of the events he foresaw would happen. Madeline dies from the exhaustion of not having food for a week and then walking from the vault to the narrator’s room.