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The Fall of the House of Usher
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Greg PratoHammill began work on The Fall of the House of Usher back in the early '70s, yet it didn't see the light of day until the early '90s as a hard-to-find European import. He didn't feel it was completely finished until 1991; hence its elongated delay. This rock opera is comprised of six acts, and is based on an Edgar Allan Poe tale with small changes to the story here and there. Unlike Hammill's other material, which is based on progressive rock, Usher has its roots in classical music. Still, it's a safe bet that longtime Hammill and prog-rock fans won't be disappointed with this classical experiment. There are lots of sweeping, churchlike a cappella vocals, which convey nearly all the album's melodies, whereas most rock fans would expect guitars and keyboards to carry out at least some of that task. Synthesizers and drums don't show up until several numbers in, so don't expect to be automatically drawn in. It takes a few listens to grasp the music and the storyline (Chris Judge Smith worked with Hammill on the libretto), with a few highlights being the early Genesis-sounding "The Herbalist" and the soothing "That Must Be the House," to name just a few.
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Introduction
"The Fall of the House of Usher," written by Edgar Allan Poe in
1839, is regarded as an early and supreme example of the Gothic
horror story, though Poe ascribed the term "arabesque" to this and
other similar works, a term that he felt best described its
flowery, ornate prose. Featuring supernatural theatrics, which
critics have interpreted a number of ways, the story exhibits Poe's
concept of "art for art's sake," the idea that a story should be
devoid of social, political, or moral teaching.
In place of a moral, Poe creates a mood—terror, in this case—
through his use of language. This philosophy of "art for art's
sake" later evolved into the literary movement of Aestheticism
which eschewed the symbolic and preachy literature of the
day—especially in England—in an attempt to overcome strict
Victorian conventions. Because of his emphasis on style and
language, Poe proclaimed his writing a reaction to typical
literature of the day, which he called "the heresy of the Didactic"
for its tendency to preach, Condemned by some critics for its
tendencies toward Romanticism, a literary movement marked by
melodramatic and maudlin exaggerations, "The Fall of the House of
Usher" was nevertheless typical of Poe's short stories in that it
presents a narrator thrust into a psychologically intense situation
in which otherworldly forces conspire to drive at least one of the
characters insane。
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is one of Poe's most popular
short stories.
Moreover, analyzing this story provides a basis for understandin
g Poe's gothicism and his literary theories. As in all of Poe's
short stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher" concentrates on a
"single effect"—in this case, the degeneration and decay of the
Usher house and family. In the story's opening, for example, the
narrator comments upon the "insufferable gloom" that pervades his
being as he notices the "few rank sedges," the "white trunks of
decayed trees," the unruffled luster of the "black and lurid tarn,"
and the house's vacant "eye-like windows."
Characters
The unnamed narrator of the story is described as a childhood
friend of Rodenck Usher's. However, the narrator notes that he does
not know Roderick very well because Roderick's "reserve had always
been excessive and habitual." The narrator visits the Usher family
house after Roderick sends him an emotional letter begging him to
come. While he seems skeptical of the supernatural and tries to
find rational explanations for the disconcerting things happening
around him, the narrator finds himself growing increasingly
disturbed by the house and the Ushers. At the end of the story,
when both Roderick and Madeline die, he flees and watches the house
crumble and fall into a small lake. The narrator has been described
as an objective witness to the events in the story, with some
suggesting he represents rationality.
With the exception of "The Gold Bug" and "Murders in the Rue
Morgue," Poe's settings are usually remote in time and space,
enhancing the story's mystery and other-worldliness. "The Fall of
the House of Usher" has no definite setting except for the
"singularly dreary tract of country" through which the narrator
must travel to reach the House of Usher.
Suits of armor and subterranean dungeons tend to suggest a
European rather than an American locale, but these details were
established trappings of the.....
Literary Qualities
Poe's literary skill is readily apparent in "The Fall of the
House of Usher," and one of his most vivid techniques is the
story's tone. Poe chooses details that highlight the terror of near
madness, premature burial, and death and destruction. Foremost is
his description of the gloomy Usher house, and the fissure that
seems to extend from the house's roof to the "sullen waters of the
Equally important in setting the tone is the violent storm on a
night that is "singular in its terror and beauty." The thunder
crashes, the lightning bolts flash, and the wind howls as Madeline
makes her way from the tomb to the door of Roderick's study.
Roderick's and Madeline's deaths are further heightened as the
narrator notes that the "blood-red moon . . . now shone
vividly.....
These topics concern the general works of Edgar Allan Poe.
Sanity and Insanity
Poe uses the theme of insanity vs. insanity, and all the nuances
in between, in many of his short stories, often charging his insane
narrators with the futile task of proving that they are not mad.
Often, in stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart and The Imp of the
Perverse, though the respective narrators of each claim they are of
sound mind and seem completely unremorseful, they are driven to
confess by a persistent reminder of their crime. In other tales,
such as The Cask of Amontillado, the narrator is unquestionably
insane, and yet there is no remorse and no confession, and though
his actions are insane, he is very levelheaded when it comes to
their execution.
Point of View
Told from the point of view of an unnamed first-person narrator,
this story does not use the unreliable narrator technique to expose
unbelievable or horrific events. Instead, the narrator is more of
an observer at first, bringing the reader along as he encounters
the gloom and desperation of both the House of Usher and its
inhabitants. As he stays in the house, he is drawn deeper into the
spell of the house and his nervousness increases, as does the
Set in the dreary, woeful House of Usher, much of this story's
tone and feeling of claustrophobic nervousness comes from its
settings. The action takes place solely in the house in which the
Ushers have sustained their illnesses of body and mind, and these
close quarters seem to affect all who come in.....
Historical Context
"The Fall of the House of Usher" was first published in 1839 in
Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. At a time when most popular
literature was highly moralistic, Poe's stories were concerned only
with creating emotional effects. Poe charged that most of his
contemporaries were "didactic," that is, they were preoccupied with
making religious or political statements in their writings to the
detriment of the fiction itself. His own tales of terror, in which
he often depicted the psychological disintegration of unstable or
emotionally overwrought characters, were in sharp contrast to the
works of more highly praised writers of the time. Because of Poe's
disdain for didactic writing, he was little regarded by the
literary establishment in his day.
The Narrator had received a letter from a boyhood acquaintance,
Roderick Usher, begging that he come to him "posthaste." Usher had
written to explain that he was suffering from a terrible mental and
bodily illness, and longed for the companionship of "his only
personal friend." The plea seemed so heartfelt that the Narrator
immediately set out for the Usher ancestral home.
Approaching the ivy-covered, decaying old house, the Narrator was
struck b y an overwhelming sense of gloom which seemed to envelop
the estate. The very sight of the manor caused within him "an
illness, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness." But
even though the"eye-like" windows of the mansion seemed to be
staring at him, he managed to swallow his fear and continue in his
carriage up the path to the door. As he rode, he tried to recall
Roderick Usher as h years had passed since
they had last met. He remembered his old friend as an extremely
reserved fellow, quite handsome but possessing an eerie, morbid
demeanor. Roderick's family was noted for its particular musical
genius - and for the fact that no new branch of the family had ever
been generated. For centuries, the title of the estate had passed
directly from father to son, so that the term "House of Usher" had
come to refer both to the family and to the mansion. Sadly, though,
Roderick was the last surviving male issue of the Usher clan.
Finally, the carriage crossed over the creaking moat bridge to the
door, and a servant admitted the Narrator. He was led through
intricate passageways and past hung armored trophies to Roderick
Usher's inner chamber, a sorrowful room where sunlight had never
Usher himself looked equally shut in, almost terrifying: pallid
skin like that of a corpse, lustrous eyes, and long hair that
seemed to float about his head. Moreover, he was plagued by a kind
of sullen, intense, nervous agitation, similar to that of a
drug-addict experiencing withdrawal. The list of his complaints was
dismaying:
He suffered much from a morbid acu the most
insipid food he could wear only garments of a
the odors of all flo his eyes
were tortured and there were but peculiar
sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire
him with horror.
But Usher wasn't alone in the house the Narrator caught a fleeting
glimpse of his friend's twin sister, Madeline, who bore an
astonishing resemblance to Roderick. Additionally, it became
evident that the brother and sister shared an eerie, almost
supernatural, sympathetic bond. Roderick could sense just what
Madeline was feeling, and she in turn could read his every thought.
Pathetically, though, beloved Madeline was grievously ill, a
"gradual wasting away of the person" that was beyond the powers of
physicians to cure. On the very night of the Narrator's arrival,
Madeline he never again saw her alive.
For weeks the Narrator tried to distract his depressed friend. They
talked, painted, and read together. Usher himself even played the
guitar. Once he improvised a wildly horrible ballad about a noble
castle invaded by demons - a song which finally convinced the
Narrator that Usher had gone mad. During this time, the two former
schoolmates discussed their opinions on various matters. One
discussion was especially intense: Usher believed that all matter,
even inanimate objects, possessed some mea
therefore the very stones of his house, he contended, were in
essence alive. Indeed, he had long felt that the entire estate,
with its dark atmosphere and personality, had,"moulded the
destinies of his family" and made him what he was.
Then one day Usher announced to his friend that Madeline was "no
more," and that he intended to entomb her body in the house's
dungeon rather than bury it. The two carried Madeline's encoffined
corpse to the grim and moss-covered underground catacombs and laid
it in a vault. There they unscrewed the coffin and lifted the lid.
Again startled by the dead sister's resemblance to her brother, the
Narrator was even more shocked to note a blush on her cheek.
Nevertheless, they resealed the coffin and locked the vault's heavy
iron door.
During the week that followed his beloved sister's death, a marked
change came over Roderick U he acted more agitated than ever
and grew more and more pale. Often he would stare blankly into
space, giving the appearance of "laboring with some oppressive
secret, which, to divulge, he struggled for the necessary
It happened late one night, when the Narrator found himself unable
to slcep. An inexplicable terror took hold of him a fright which
was not at all soothed by the violent storm that raged outside. As
he paced nervously about, suddenly
Usher dashed into the room. "There was a species of mad hilarity in
his eyes ... hysteria in his whole demeanor."
In an attempt to calm Usher, his friend pulled from the bookcase a
second rate medieval romance and began to read aloud. But in the
midst of a passage describing a knight who tears apart a wooden
door, the Narrator thought he heard, somewhere in the house, the
same cracking and ripping sound so vividly portrayed in the book.
Undaunted, he read on - this time, a passage that described the
knight's fatal blow to a dragon, which then cried out with a long
piercing wail. Again there immediately emanated from the dark
recesses of the house a similar shriek.
Although shaken, the Narrator kept reading. Now the book told of
"the clangorous sound of a knight's shield falling to the ground" -
and once again, just as the words left his lips, the Narrator heard
a distinct metallic ringing noise. At this, he became totally
unnerved and turned to Usher, who made a chilling announcement: he
had buried his sister alive! All week he had listened to her
st felt the beating of
her heart. "I heard them - many, many days ago," he admitted. "Yet
I dared not - I dared not speak!"
And now - tonight ... the rending of her coffin, and the grating of
the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the copper
archway of the vault! The heavy and horrible beating of her heart
.... Madman! I tell you that she stands without the door!
At that, the antique doors flung open, and there stood the hideous,
bloodstained apparition of Lady Madeline. With her last burst of
energy, and with a bloodcurdling scream, she fell on her brother,
and "in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the
floor, a corpse, a victim to the terrors he had anticipated."
Aghast, the Narrator fled down the shadowy balls and from the
house. At some distance, he glanced back. There, in the light of
the "full, setting and blood red moon," he saw the massive House of
Usher being rent into pieces by a whirlwind, and then swallowed up
into the dark lake that surrounded it.
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经典名著:《厄西亚房子的倒塌》The Fall of the House of Usher
厄西亚房子的倒塌(The Fall of the House of Usher)简介：&The Fall of the House of Usher& is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. It contains within it the poem &The Haunted Palace&, which had earlier been published separately in the April 1839 issue of the Baltimore Museum magazine.
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