House of Usher - Losing Reality
People can die from mere imagination. "Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind; it is a way of engaging in reality"-(Irving Howe). The Fall of the House enables him to create his own reality of imagination. He makes an attempt to kill off the only reality in his life, his twin sister, Madeline Usher, whom he buries alive. In this short story, romantic elements and characteristics are expressed through Roderick's imagination that progressively infects the narrator; the intuition and inner feelings felt between Roderick and Madeline, as well as by the narrator; and the reverence for nature which reflects the events that occurs in the House of Usher.
Imagination is a romantic element, especially evident in Roderick Usher. His illness begins to infect the narrator when he arrives at the "mansion of gloom." The narrator takes the first step into Usher's realm of imagination and feels "an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart-an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime." During the narrator's visit to the House of Usher he starts to become contaminated by Roderick's strange reality and experiences rapid increase in his superstitions and in his mind grew "a strange fancy-a fancy so ridiculous…the sensations which oppressed" him. This shows the contagiousness of Usher's "mental disorder" which is the result of his seclusion from the world and his refusal to agree to ordinary societal values. Roderick's isolation allows him to create his own reality filled with imagination and irrational beliefs.
Another characteristic of romanticism is displayed through the intuition and inner feelings felt between Roderick and Madeline Usher and can also be observed in the narrator. In the story, Roderick takes the narrator to the donjon and shows him where Madeline had been encoffined. Since the lid of the coffin was unscrewed the narrator "looked upon the face of the tenant" and notices "that the deceased and himself had been twins and…a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them." The narrator also sees "a faint blush upon the bosom and face" of Madeline but thinks it is just a trait for those who die of catalepsy. Although he believes Madeline was dead, deep down he had an immediate perception of the truth without reasoning and "experienced the full power of such feelings…and struggled to reason off the nervousness." Seven...