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This 6 page paper argues that In The Fall Of The House Of Usher and The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allen Poe uses the theme of death as the foundation for life's experiences. Bibliography lists 8 sources.
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6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_KTpoesht.doc
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of death as the foundation for lifes experiences. Characters and settings alike die as a means of symbolizing the ordeal of life. In The Fall, Roderick Usher is
first seen as extremely ill. The illness, according to Roderick, is a "family evil" from which he is certain he will perish. It seems that the malady is
a mental disorder whereby he cannot eat but the most disgusting food, has to wear certain types of clothing and believes the house is haunted. All of this
was secondary, however, to the fact that his sister, who lived there with him, was dying of a long term illness and incapacity. Poe provides, within the first few
pages, the aura of death as integral to the story by implying that the three main characters, the house, the sister and Roderick, are well on their way to death.
In The Fall Of The House Of Usher, Roderick and the house are driven toward death while Madeline is seen to be lured into her death and the
narrator experiences a death of belief. In Cask, the theme that permeates the story is life as death or life after death. "J. Gerald Kennedy argues: Unlike most
of his contemporaries, [Poe] refused to soften or idealize mortality and kept its essential horror in view But what is the "essential horror" Poe focuses on here - the
horror of mortality, of death as final, or the horror of a perceived life-in-death, of death as undying? It is not death but "the smile of the dead" that
Poe sees as horrifying" (cited in Brown 448). The death of Fortunato is sought by Montresor because his reputation has been broken beyond repair - that is, it has
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