1、The Fall of the House of Usher,By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849),Edgar Allan Poe（18091849）,侦探小说(detective story)鼻祖、科幻小说(science fiction)先驱之一、恐怖小说(horror fiction)大师、短篇哥特小说巅峰、象征主义(symbolism)先驱之一，唯美主义(aestheticism) 者。受到过爱伦坡影响的主要人物有：柯南道尔、波德莱尔、斯特芳马拉美、儒勒凡尔纳、罗伯特路易斯斯蒂文森、希区柯克、蒂姆伯顿、江户川乱步等。最著名的文艺理论是“效果论”爱伦坡、安布鲁斯布
2、尔斯（18421914？）和 H.P洛夫克拉夫特（18901937）并称为美国三大恐怖小说家爱伦坡在怪异故事集序中称“自己的作品绝大部分都是深思熟虑的苦心经营”。,Main Works,Poetry O, Tempora! O,Mores! To Margaret To Octavia Tamerlane Song Dreams Spirits of the Dead Imitation StanzasA Dream The Happiest Day The Lake To To Science Al Aaraaf,Fairy-Land Alone To Isaac Lea Elizabeth
3、 An Acrostic Lines on Joe Locke To Helen Israfel The Sleeper The Valley of Unrest The City in the Sea Lenore To One in Paradise Enigma Serenade,Gothic Terror NovelsThe Duc De LOmelette 德洛梅勒特公爵King Pest 瘟疫王The Fall of the House of Usher 厄舍府的倒塌The Assignation 幽会 The Devil in the Belfry 钟楼魔影The Angel o
4、f the Odd 奇怪天使The Man That Was Used Up 被用光的人,Detective StoryThou Art the Man你就是凶手 The Purloined Letter 被窃之信The Mystery of Marie Roget 玛丽罗热疑案 The Murders in the Rue Morgue 莫格街谋杀The Gold-Bug 金甲虫The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether塔尔博士和费瑟尔教授的疗法The Oblong Box长方形箱子,The Fall of the House of Ushe
5、r厄舍古屋的倒塌,The Fall of the House of Usher is a short story of Gothic horror written in first-person point of view. It was first published in September 1839 in Burtons Gentlemans Magazine. In 1840 and 1845, Poe published it with other stories in Tales of the Grotesque and of the Arabesque. 厄舍古屋的倒塌是爱伦坡最
6、着名的心理恐怖小说之一。主人公罗得瑞克的性格，他与妹妹玛德琳的关系，以及他活埋妹妹的动机一直是人们关注的焦点。小说全篇贯穿了大量的意识流描写，堪称心理小说中的精品。,BackgroundThe story begins at dusk on an autumn day in an earlier time, probably the 19th Century. The place is a forbidding mansion in a forlorn countryside. The mansion, covered by a fungus, is encircled by a small
7、lake, called a tarn, that resembles a moat. A bridge across the tarn provides access to the mansion.,Plot,The tale opens with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness
8、 and asking for his help. Although strong-willed Poe wrote this short story before the invention of modern psychological science, Rodericks symptoms can be described according to its terminology. They include a form of sensory overload known as hyperesthesia (hypersensitivity to light, sounds, smell
9、s, and tastes), hypochondria (an excessive preoccupation or worry about having a serious illness), and acute anxiety. It is revealed that Rodericks twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, death-like trances. The narrator is impressed with Rodericks paintings, and attempts to ch
10、eer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the guitar. Roderick sings The Haunted Palace, then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be sentient, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surround
11、ing it.,Roderick later informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she be entombed for two weeks in a vault (family tomb) in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and he notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks, as some do afte
12、r death. They inter her, but over the next week both Roderick and the narrator find themselves becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. A storm begins. Roderick comes to the narrators bedroom, which is situated directly above the vault, and throws open his window to the storm. He notic
13、es that the tarn surrounding the house seems to glow in the dark, as it glowed in Roderick Ushers paintings, although there is no lightning. The narrator attempts to calm Roderick by reading aloud The Mad Trist, a novel involving a knight named Ethelred who breaks into a hermits dwelling in an attem
14、pt to escape an approaching storm, only to find a palace of gold guarded by a dragon. He also finds hanging on the wall a shield of shining brass of which is written a legend: that the one who slays the dragon wins the shield. With a stroke of his mace, Ethelred kills the dragon, who dies with a pie
15、rcing shriek, and proceeds to take the shield, which falls to the floor with an unnerving clatter.,As the narrator reads of the knights forcible entry into the dwelling, cracking and ripping sounds are heard somewhere in the house. When the dragon is described as shrieking as it dies, a shriek is he
16、ard, again within the house. As he relates the shield falling from off the wall, a reverberation, metallic and hollow, can be heard. Roderick becomes increasingly hysterical, and eventually exclaims that these sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed and that
17、Roderick knew that she was alive. The bedroom door is then blown open to reveal Madeline standing there. She falls on her brother, and both land on the floor as corpses. The narrator then flees the house, and, as he does so, notices a flash of light causing him to look back upon the House of Usher,
18、in time to watch it break in two, the fragments sinking into the tarn.,中文,Main Theme The central theme of The Fall of the House of Usher is terror that arises from the complexity and multiplicity of forces that shape human destiny. Dreadful, horrifying events result not from a single, uncomplicated
19、circumstance but from a collision and intermingling of manifold, complex circumstances. In Poes story, the House of Usher falls to ruin for the reasons listed under Other Themes (below).,Other ThemesEvil Evil has been at work in the House of Usher for generations, befouling the residents of the mans
20、ion. Roderick Ushers illness is a constitutional and family evil . . . one for which he despaired to find a remedy, the narrator reports. Usher himself later refers to this evil in Stanza V of The Haunted Palace, a ballad he sings to the accompaniment of his guitar music. The palace in the ballad re
21、presents the House of Usher. The first two lines of Stanza V are as follows:,Isolation Failure to AdaptMadness Mystery Strange Phenomena,Characters Narrator, a friend of the master of the House of Usher. When he visits his friend, he witnesses terrifying events. Roderick Usher, the master of the hou
22、se. He suffers from a depressing malaise characterized by strange behavior. Madeline Usher, twin sister of Roderick. She also suffers from a strange illness. After apparently dying, she rises from her coffin.,Servant, domestic in the Usher household. He attends to the narrators horse. Valet, domesti
23、c in the Usher household who conducts the narrator to Roderick Ushers room. Physician, one of several doctors who treat Madeline Usher.,Allusions and references,The opening epigraph quotes Le Refus (1831) by the French songwriter Pierre-Jean de Branger (17801857), translated to English as his heart
24、is a suspended lute, as soon as it is touched, it resounds. Brangers original text reads Mon cur (my heart) and not Son cur (his/her heart). The narrator describes one of Ushers musical compositions as a . singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. Poe here
25、 refers to a popular piano work of his time which, though going by the title Webers Last Waltz was actually composed by Carl Gottlieb Reissiger (17981859). A manuscript copy of the music was found among Webers papers upon his death in 1826 and the work was mistakenly attributed to him. Ushers painti
26、ng reminds the narrator of the Swiss-born British painter Henry Fuseli (17411825).,Symbolism The Fungus-Ridden Mansion: Decline of the Usher family. The Collapsing Mansion: Fall of the Usher family. The Tarn, a Small Lake Encircling the Mansion and Reflecting Its Image: (1) Madeline as the twin of R
27、oderick, reflecting his image and personality; (2) the image of reality which Roderick and the narrator perceive; though the water of the tarn reflects details exactly, the image is upside down, leaving open the possibility that Roderick and the narrator see a false reality; (3) the desire of the Us
28、hers to isolate themselves from the outside world.,The “Vacant eye-like” Windows of the Mansion: (1) Hollow, cadaverous eyes of Roderick Usher; (2) Madeline Ushers cataleptic gaze; (3) the vacuity of life in the Usher mansion. The Bridge Over the Tarn: The narrator as Roderick Ushers only link to th
29、e outside world. The name Usher: An usher is a doorkeeper. In this sense, Roderick Usher opens the door to a frightening world for the narrator. The Storm: The turbulent emotions experienced by the characters.,Literary significance and criticism,The Fall of the House of Usher is considered Poes most
30、 famous work of prose.This highly unsettling macabre work is recognized as a masterpiece of American Gothic literature. Indeed, as in many of his tales, Poe borrows much from the Gothic tradition. Still, as G. R. Thomson writes in his Introduction to Great Short Works of Edgar Allan Poe ,the tale ha
31、s long been hailed as a masterpiece of Gothic horror; it is also a masterpiece of dramatic irony and structural symbolism. The Fall of the House of Usher has also been criticized for being too formulaic. Poe was criticized for following his own patterns established in works like Morella and Ligeia u
32、sing stock characters in stock scenes and stock situations. Repetitive themes like an unidentifiable disease, madness, and resurrection are also criticized.,Poes inspiration for the story may be based upon events of the Usher House, located on Bostons Lewis Wharf. As that story goes, a sailor and th
33、e young wife of the older owner were caught and entombed in their trysting spot by her husband. When the Usher House was torn down in 1800, two bodies were found embraced in a cavity in the cellar.10 Another source of inspiration may be from an actual couple by the name Mr. and Mrs. Luke Usher, the
34、friends and fellow actors of his mother Eliza Poe.11 The couple took care of Elizas three children (including Poe) during her time of illness and eventual death. Scholars speculate that Poe, who was an influence on Herman Melville, inspired the character of Ahab in Melvilles novel Moby-Dick. John Mc
35、Aleer maintained that the idea for objectifying Ahabs flawed character came from the evocative force of Poes The Fall of the House of Usher. In both Ahab and the house of Usher, the appearance of fundamental soundness is visibly flawed by Ahabs livid scar, and by the fissure in the masonry of Usher.
36、12,In 1980 the Czech surrealist film maker Jan vankmajer adapted the story as a short film relying entirely on imagery and inanimate objects in place of actors.In the 2008 David DeCoteau film, it is implied that the house is a living being, dependent on the human souls that Roderick and Madeline pro
37、vide it with. The central character is called Victor Reynolds, a reference to the name allegedly called out by Poe the night before his death.,Film, TV or theatrical adaptations,In the low-budget Roger Corman film from 1960, known in the United States as House of Usher, the narrator falls in love wi
38、th the sickly Madeline, much to Rodericks horror. As Roderick reveals, the Usher family has a history of evil and cruelty so great that he and Madeline pledged in their youth never to have children and to allow their family to die with them. When Madeline falls into a deathlike catalepsy, her brothe
39、r (who knows that she is still alive) rushes to have her placed in the family crypt. When she wakes up, Madeline goes insane from being buried alive and breaks free with insanity-induced strength. She confronts her brother and begins throttling him to death. Suddenly the house, already aflame due to
40、 a fallen lit candle, begins to collapse and the narrator flees as Roderick is killed by Madeline and both she and the Ushers sole servant are consumed by the falling house. The film was Cormans first in a series of eight films inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe.,Style and Imagery Word Choice
41、Poe carefully makes every word, every phrase, every sentence in the story contribute to the overall effect, horror, accompanied by oppressing morbidity and anxious anticipation of terrifying events. Notice, for example, the tenor of the words in the opening sentence of the story. I have underlined t
42、hose that help establish the mood and atmosphere. During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as
43、the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.,Rhythm But besides painting a gloomy picture, the words in the paragraph also beat out a funereal rhythmat first through the alliteration of during, dull, dark, and day, and then through the rhyming suffixes of oppressi
44、vely, singularly, and melancholy.,Alliteration Alliteration occurs frequently in the rest of the story，in such phrases as the following: iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart cadaverousness of complexion feeble and futile struggles certain superstitious impressions the s in impressions does n
45、ot alliterate because it has a z sound sensation of stupor partially cataleptical character wild air of the last waltz fervid facility of his impromptus impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the frag
46、ments of the House of Usher.,Anaphora As in his other short stories, Poe frequently uses anaphora in The Fall of the House of Usher. Anaphora is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of a clause or another group of words. Anaphora imparts emphasis and balance. Her
47、e are boldfaced examples from The Fall of the House of Usher: I looked upon the scene before meupon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domainupon the bleak wallsupon the vacant eye-like windowsupon a few rank sedgesand upon a few white trunks of decayed trees .,While the object
48、s around mewhile the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancywhile I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. Many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it .,
