-
Psychological Analysis of Characterization
in
The Fall of the
House of
Usher
Abstract
: The Fall of the
House of Usher is one of the famous gothic short
stories of
Edgar Allan Poe. And this
story has portrayed three main characters
——
“
I
”
, Roderick
Usher, and lady Madeline.
They all have distinct personalities. From the
perspective
of psychology, this paper
will employ Freud
’
s
personality structure system to analyze
the characterization in The Fall of the
House of Usher.
Keyword
:
Edgar
Allan
Poe;
The
Fall
of
the
House
of
Usher;
characterization;
personality structure system
摘要
：
《厄
舍古屋的倒塌》是埃德加·爱伦·坡著名的哥特短篇小说之一。小说
刻画了三个主要人物
——“我”，罗德瑞克·厄舍，玛德琳小姐，其性格截然不
同。
本文将从心理学的视角，
运用弗洛伊德的人格系统理论对
《厄舍
古屋的倒塌》
中的主要人物性格描写进行分析。
关键词
：埃德加·爱伦·坡；《厄舍古屋的倒塌》；人物刻画；人格系统理论
Edgar
Allan
Poe
is
widely
regarded
as
a
central
figure
of
Romanticism
in
the
United
States
and
American
literature
as
a
whole,
and
he
was
one
of
the
country's
earliest
practitioners
of
the
short
is
best
known
for
his
poetry
and
tales
of
Gothic
elements
and
mystery.
And
The
Fall
of
the
House
of
Usher
is
one
of
those
Gothic stories. And
obviously it has been always studied as a Gothic
story. Most of
papers
are
written
about
its
Gothic
characters,
environment,
and
architecture.
However, this
paper will employ a new way to interpret this
Gothic story. In this story,
there
are
three
main
characters
——
the
narrator
“
I
”
,
Roderick
Usher,
and
his
sister
lady Madeline. And those three people
have deeply connected relations. And in this
paper, it will employ
Freud
’
s personality
structure theory to separately analyze those
three
characters
’
symbolic
meanings
and
then
explain
their
connections.
In
Freud
’
s
personality structure theory, he
assigns people
’
s mental
processes into three psychic
zones: the
id, the ego, and the superego.
The
id
is,
in
short,
the
source
of
all
our
aggressions
and
desires.
It
is
lawless,
asocial and amoral. Its function is to
gratify our instincts for pleasure without regard
for social conventions, legal ethics,
or moral restraint. And Roderick is the symbolic
embodiment
of
the
id.
His
series
of
unreasonable
and
uncontrollable
behaviors
and
the
final degeneration to insanity is the symbol of
the unsocial and immoral id. And
his
falling is a step by step process. At the
beginning of this story, the narrator
“
I
”
was
invited to the house of Usher by
his friend in childhood for alleviation of his
illness.
Because
as
Roderick
wrote
in
the
letter
that
“
I
”
was
“
his
best
and
indeed
his
only
personal
friend
”
. Yet
“
I
”
knew little of this so-called friend. And his
personality in his
childhood
was
described
as
been
genetically
sensitive.
And
this
is
his
primary
personality in his
boyhood. He is just a introverted and lonely boy.
So this could be
the
normal
period
that
the
id
personality
still
is
suppressed
in
his
deep
unconsciousness. And
now it comes to the time when this story happened.
And after a
valet ushering
“
me
”
into the presence of
“
my
”
friend,
“
I
”
saw him after so many years.
However,
“
I
”
gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half
of awe for Roderick
’
s
terrible change in such a brief time.
“
I
”
compared his countenance, eyes and hair in
“
my
”
memory with their conditions now.
“
I
”
even doubted that
“
I
”
did not speak with
the same Roderick
“
I
”
ever knew. And then
“
I
”
noticed an inconsistency in
Roderick
’
s
behaviour.
He
could
not
control
his
habitual
trepidancy,
though
he
tried
to.
What
’
s
more,
“
His action
was alternately vivacious and sullen, His voice
varied rapidly from
a tremulous
indecision to that species of energetic
concision.
”
He was described
like a
lost drunkard and irreclaimable
eater of opium. And he said it was a
constitutional and
family evil when he
depicted the nature of his malady. It displayed
itself in a host of
unnatural
sensations. And he was tortured by an anomalous
species of terror. And he
kept saying
“
I shall
perish.
”
“
I must
perish.
”
“
I felt that the
period will sooner or
later arrive when
I must abandon life and reason together, in some
struggle with the
grim phantasm
fear.
”
When Roderick spoke
with
“
me
”
,
he still have little reason left.
During the time they met, the word
“
struggle
”
was mentioned twice in this story. Thus,
this could be the period that the id of
Roderick weighed over the superego. But the
superego had not been fully expelled.
The night his ill sister
’
s
surrender to the disease
is the crucial
turning point of his final degeneration to the
indulgent id. He informed
his
sister
’
s
condition
with
“
inexpressible
agitation
”
.
For
several
days
ensuing,
Roderick seemed to
forget about his sister. He acted like a normal
person. He painted
，
read and
recited rhapsodies. This could be the calm before
the storm. About reading,
Roderick was
chiefly interested in the perusal of an
exceedingly rare and curious book
which
wrote about wild ritual. And I could not help
thinking of its possible influence
upon
the
hypochondriac,
namely
Roderick.
Thus,
what
is
the
influence
of
it?
The
abrupt
death of lady Madeline. And he insisted to
preserve her corpse for two weeks
which
seems unreasonable and singular. Later, it turned
out to be extremely abnormal
and
creepy. Because he buried his sister animatedly in
coffin. A few days after lady
Madeline
was
buried,
an
observable
change
came
over
the
features
of
the
mental
disorder of Roderick.
“
His ordinary manner had
vanished. His ordinary occupations
were
neglected or forgotten. He immersed in
an
inexplicable vagaries of
madness.
”
Thus, this period is his final
degeneration and indulgence to his unsocial and
immoral
id.
The ego, in
Freud
’
s theory, is the
rational governing agent of the psyche. As Freud
points
out,
“
In
popular
language,
we
may
say
that
ego
stands
for
reason
and
circumspection, while
the id stands for the untamed
passions.
”
Thus, in this
story,
“
I
”
am the symbolic embodiment of the
balanced and rational ego. The whole story was