Analysis of Poe’s Poems The Raven and The Fall of The House of Usher

Edgar Allan Poe’s work as a writer has always shown darkness, madness, and macabre. Poe’s life was plagued from his childhood with the same reflections that are seen in his stories. Poe consistently shows the macabre and insanity in the horror short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and the horror poem, “The Raven”.

“The Raven” is a significant piece of work that is very well known from the 19th century, created by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was recognized for his Gothic short stories and his fark and haunting poetry. The Raven is one of Poe’s greatest accomplishments and was even turned into numerous television appearances. The story is told about an unnamed narrator whose beloved Lenore has left him. A raven comes throughout the poem showing that he and his lover are nevermore. He presents the downfall of the narrator's mind through the raven and many chilling events. Lenore's absence also firthers to another absence that mimics the humans incapability to know and understand what is happening. The darkness, Poe uses a vivid language to achieve his effects, he arranges the perfect time, place, and other details that make the poem rapid and clear. Poe chooses his words clearly and carefully and requires that its meaning is related to the poem as a whole.

Madness and insanity are both used throughout Poe's poem. Insanity is portrayed when the raven is so focused on where it wants to go, the narrator is not attempting to get rid of the bird as soon as it flies in, it immediately informs the reader that the situation is not realistic or being experienced by a sane person. The raven also understands the narrator and reply with one very simple word “nevermore”. This word easily suggests the insanity in the raven because the narrator is either insane enough to imagine this or mad enough to continue the conversation as if he is talking to a person. Both of these cases are considered “normal” and can be described as something impossible. The motif dreams is one that is from the start of the poem by staging it at midnight when the narrator is already asleep before he hears the first knock occur. The repetition that occurs in the narrator's dream not only makes the story less reliable but it also suggests that he was falling in and out of consciousness which showed many more unrealistic incidents that support the idea of madness and insanity. 

His madness, then, is finally the result of perverse and childish method of accounting for whatever evil befalls one in life: It is so because I want it so, and everything is my fault. They only way to get a meaning for particularly inexplicable tragedy is to blame oneself, if only to assume some degree or order in a word that threatens to overwhelm oneself. This attitude is typical of the immature and self-destructive egotism which needs for all events to have a personal significance, even a personal source. By blaming himself, the student is in control of an otherwise meaningless situation. Thus, he may have willed Lenore’s death, he accuses himself unconsciously. The “thirst for self torture” in Poe’s characters is very often associated with criminal intent”.

This is why I think your dreams are linked to your subconscious, meaning that if he were dreaming the conversation he has with the raven shows what he is thinking and feeling deep in his soul.

The title “The Raven” sets up a unique story that makes us anticipate the ravens arrival and naturally leads us to what we pay attention to. The Raven represents a lot of things in the story. He could represent something like Lenore, the narrator or even the word nevermore. The Raven represents something deep in the story, something from the narrator's madness or an omen of his death. The Raven is a very versatile character in the sense that makes it perfect for him to be the title as you get to understand the story further. For example, the Raven does represent the narrators death and madness, but the title can be translated to “The death of a madman” or something similar. Mentioned earlier, “The Raven,” the story itself becomes very flexible to the reader and how they interpret the story. The madness and insanity are two aspects explored throughout the whole poem “The Raven”. The main way this is portrayed through the speaking of the raven as this is not something that is possible and yet it dominated most of the storyline. The narrator is conscious throughout the poem or if it is all something he dreams about after drinking too much and mourning over his lost love Lenore.

Madness is a common element used by many authors including Edgar Allen Poe, with the use of motif, madness is used to assure the reader can have a distorted perception of the false ideas about reality. In “The Fall of The House of Usher,” the protagonist, Roderick Usher is very mentally unstable because of many incidents that have happened in his life. One major factor that has occured in Rodericks life is when his sister Madeline, suffered from catalepsy and later dies. Roderick is extremely affected by this incident because Madeline was the only person left in his life that kept him mentally stable. Madeline had an extremely close relationship with Roderick as sister and brother. Their relationship was incestual which also depicts the role of madness.

Another factor that led Roderick into madness is the fact that he isolated himself from the world. Roderick becomes isolated and develops paranoia and delusion because of his loneliness and thoughts after his sister dies. Rodericks thoughts about his sister begin to drive him insane and he begins to fear his own logic. The narrator says, “I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honoured as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.” The whole Usher family had always isolated themselves in their residence which led them to become a bit maniacal. This shows how the whole family was insular and separated from the rest of the society. Through the separation and family isolation, they were led to false views of reality, they only cared about the events happening in the Usher residence and they became offly close with one another. According to the critic,

“Here, it must be understood that Roderick had to cross the line into madness, for only this point will serve to explain the ending. In brief, Roderick must be mentally unbalanced if he is to conjure Madeline's ghost, for indeed the hallucination that Madeline returns alive from the grave is but the product of Roderick’s mind. The proof of such an interpretation lies in the text”.

The madness of Roderick Usher is stated in the passage, he is not in the right state of mind and it is proved by various people that show he is crazy. This also shows the madness of the whole family and how inbreeding causes various emotional and mental issues that can lead to insanity.

Madness and Insanity are commonly used in gothic literature because they build perception and false ideas about reality, Edgar Allan Poe has always shown darkness, madness, and macabre in his stories. Poe’s life was plagued from his childhood with the same reflections that are seen in his stories. Poe consistently shows the macabre and insanity in the horror short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and the horror poem, “The Raven”.