厄舍古屋的倒塌课件

1、“The Fall of the House of Usher”,Edgar Allan Poe 1839,“The Fall of the House of Usher”,The gothic context of the tale The doubling motif of the tale The function of setting in the tale The structural unity of the tale,The Gothic literary tradition,Begun in eighteenth century England Novelists Horace

2、 Walpole Ann Radcliffe Matthew “Monk” Lewis Popular form in British literary journals Imported into American short story - 19th century Key ingredient was sensationalism,Gothic Architecture in America,Started in US about 1840 Steeply pitched roofs Pointed arch windows Elaborate trim around roof edge

3、s High dormers Lancet windows,Poes “house of Usher” looks more like a medieval castle or English cathedral in Gothic style,The house might look something like this (from a photograph by Simon Marsden in his Visions of Poe),Elements of Gothic Writing,Emphasis on setting Exterior: landscape Interior:

4、houses Castle-like architecture Characters are brooding, secretive Buried family secrets Long history of family tied to place,The Doubling Motif,In literary criticism, this is called a “doppelganger,” from the German for “double-goer” Examples are: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson) Th

5、e Secret Sharer (Joseph Conrad),What function does the doppelganger motif serve?,Represents the dual nature of man In Poe, one side of man is reason, or the mind The other is emotion, or the body Roderick and Madeleine are genetically twins, but psychologically they are also doubles.,Who Represents

6、What?,Roderick An artist figure (509) Nervous agitation (509) Lives in dark upstairs apartment (511) Cadaverous complexion (511) “want of moral energy” (511) “excessive nervous agitation” (511-12),Rodericks mental condition is affected by his environment “He was enchanted by certain superstitious im

7、pressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted . . . An effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.” (512),Here, “physique” refers to something physical And “moral

8、e” refers to something mental Roderick is all mind in a weak body He represents in one way the life of the isolated artist Paintings Reading Guitar playing,Madeleine Illness has debilitated her All descriptions focus on the body “gradual wasting away of the person” (513) Roderick and the narrator sc

9、rew down the lid of her coffin (518) She returns from the tomb to reclaim her twin brother, her “double” “the huge antique panelsthrew back” (521) She “fell heavily inward uponher brother andbore him to the floor a corpse”,What is Poes point?,Poe addresses the dual and conflicted nature of the Self

10、Mind and body are at war with each other in each of us We try to repress one side and live without it But we cannot achieve a harmonious existence in this way,The Function of Setting - Exterior,The “house of Usher” has two meanings The physical dwelling The family line, or lineage “the entire family

11、 lay in the direct line of descent”,The house is also a type of character in the story Like the family, it is of “an excessive antiquity” (510) The landscape is overgrown and ragged On the front down the middle is “a barely perceptible fissure” going in “a zigzag direction” (510),Interior Setting,Go

12、thic architecture (511) “windows were long, narrow and pointed” “feeble gleams of encrimsoned light” “dark draperies” “atmosphere of sorrow” Roderick lives upstairs (mind) Madeleine is entombed below ground (body),Structure and Unity,Poe creates texts within texts “The Haunted Palace” (poem) reflect

13、s the Usher family life in the house (515) “The Mad Trist” (story) parallels Madeleines return from the grave The storm outside is analogous to the turmoil inside the characters in the house The book titles in Rodericks library are symbolic of the themes of the story,Rodericks Library,“the Chiromanc

14、y of Robert Flud, of Jean DIndagine” “the Directorium Inquisitorum” “old African Satyrs, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours” (516-17),Poes Theory of Literary Unity,Poe earned his living as a “magazinist,” not a fiction writer. He was an editor and reviewer for many major magazines. Poe wr

15、ote a great deal of literary criticism, literary theory, and book reviews. His theory of literary unity was articulated in a review of Hawthornes collection of stories, Twice-Told Tales in 1842,An author should “conceive, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, and then invent such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design.,Unity in “Fall of the House of Usher”,First