A Rose for Emily vs. The Fall of the House of Usher
The most amazing thing about literature isn't the fact that its entertaining, the real gold lies in how complete and how wonderful each author makes you feel. The readings discussed in class both had a wonderful mastermind behind the scenes. Each story brought out its authors unique choice of mystery. Each story had us at the edge of our seats, but even though they had many similarities, they also had quite distinguishing aspects.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" begins by showing us this man with no name who receives a letter from a so called friend. The letter is sent by Rodrick Usher. He and the unnamed man were childhood friends. Usher expressed how ill he was and how he would love for his greatest friend to come visit him for a little while. The man decided to go and see his friend. When he arrives the author portrays this dark, haunted looking mansion. This is a part in the story where the author begins to stir up feelings in the reader. As the story progresses we see how Rodrick has a very faithful servant which was the one who received him the day of his arrival and also takes care of the usher family. We encounter a woman called Madeline Usher, which is our protagonists' sister. Both Rodrick and Madeline were ill. Rodrick had acuteness of the senses and many mental disorders. Madeline is a hypochondriac. The author shows us how this family has kept their name pure by incest during the years, the last two descendants of the family were Madeline and Rodrick, which meant eventually they had to be together. During the story we see how Madeline is slowly getting sicker and Rodrick sees this as some kind of betrayal. He didn't want to be let alone so He somehow convinces his friend to help him bury her alive. She was in some sort of a coma but Rodrick's excuse was that he thought she was dead but she would maybe come back and his friend was not going to convince him otherwise. They both went down to the dungeon and left her locked in a coffin. As they went back to the house, there came a storm, and Rodrick began reading a mystery novel. The author added tension to the scene and his friend was troubled and afraid. The author made it so that what was happening in the story would happen in real life. At this point in the story his friend was freaked out, Rodrick then confessed to burying his sister alive. In that moment Madeline was running towards him to kill him. The unnamed man ran away and never looked back, whereas both of the Ushers died and with them their house. The author tries to tie the house to their lives, we see at the beginning the house was decaying but it was still held up, at the end of the story we see how the house falls and so do they.
"A Rose for Emily" is a short story about a woman, Emily, which suffers from a mental disorder. Even though the author does not say she is mentally ill, it can be inferred. At the beginning of the story we see how she lived with her father and apparently he was wealthy, he had struck a deal that eliminated taxes for him and his family, this was due to a generous donation to the town. Emily's father was protective of her, not only did he push away all possible candidates that could date his daughter, but he also said that nobody was good enough for her. Her father passed away and she was in some sort of denial, she left the body in the house and wouldn't let anybody take it. The body was stinking up but she was still in denial. One day she broke down and let them take away the body. This is where she become ill. She had a servant called Tom, he was very loyal and even though they lived in a small southern town where everyone gossiped, he never aid a word about her or her family. Later on in the story we are presented with this black man named Homer Baron. This man was very chatty and he knew everybody. He seems to be smitten for miss Emily. The were seen together sometimes during the story and the people of the town would gossip and say it was about time she got someone to marry. She was seen buying clothes for men and nor just any type of clothes but a suit. The author makes our minds go wild and we all believe they are getting married. Emily is a mess, people came to collect her taxes and she brought the deal her father had mad, but the man that had struck said deal had died. She was also giving young girls painting lessons. One day she went to a store and asked for poison. The man at the front desk asked her what kind of poison she wanted. She replied and said she wanted the strongest one. The clerk gave her arsenic, which was a type of rat poison and it was the strongest they sell. Emily never said why she wanted said poison, this is where the author takes the opportunity to open our minds to the possibility that she would kill homer. At the end of the story we see how she did kill Homer but not only that, she had also lain by his side After her death, Tom left town, and he did not say a word about miss Emily or what she had done to Homer. The author in this story uses the death of her father as a foreshadowing tool to show us how just as she kept his body, she would keep Homers body.
Both of these stories bring a sense of mystery and twisted darkness to a readers mind. We see how both stories present mentally ill protagonists. The stories are similar also in the deaths, just as lady Madeline and Rodrick dies, so did Emily and Homer. Both authors use houses to portray their protagonists, at the beginning each house was put together and well establishes, slowly as the protagonists slowly decayed, so did their houses. The servants in each story represented supreme loyalty to their respective families. The arts are brought up in both stories, Emily is a painter and so is Rodrick. They both share the same skillset when it comes to paintings. Rodrick was said to paint beautifully and exquisitely. There are also some distinguishing facts about these stories. The setting of each story differs in that "The Fall of the House of Usher" takes place in a mansion outside civilization, there are no neighbors and it is just the family that takes center stage in the story. On the other hand, '"A Rose for Emily" takes place in a small southern town filled with nosy neighbors. We see how the Usher family married each other, but it seems like Emily's father never found her a suitable mate.
The list goes on and on, but both of these stories bring a new sense f dark twisted humor to literature. They are both well redacted pieces of literature and it is amazing to see how by reading, we can tap into a stream of imagination. I liked the stories very much, and although they were long, I appreciate the skill and preciseness of the authors.
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