Resurrecting the House of Usher

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is not an American short story by any stretch of the imagination. This gothic tale is, rather, a look into the mind of anguish and a dive into a sea of torment in the life of Roderick Usher. From the beginning to the end, this horror story is full and complete with somber and shadowy imagery. Poe uses many aspects of insanity as well as reality to blur the lines between what is and is not going on in the House of Usher. This causes a kind of vagueness that does not turn the reader away but invites them in to figure out for themselves what is real and what is fantasy. In Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”, horrifically dark and grotesque images are used to portray a psychotic breakdown that ultimately leads to death by guilt.

The very title possesses dark imagery. One of the definitions of the word house is just as it sounds, a living quarters or a place of residence. This definition has connotations of structure and support with design and architecture. Another meaning is that of family and lineage. The connotations of family imply love, support, and structure, which make for the similitude of these definitions. A family is like a building, strong, supportive, and a place to find solace. However, should this structure become weakened then it will collapse into a pile of rubble. So then, what weakens a building? Dangers such as fire, pests, and natural disasters can all cause a building to collapse. All of these things can destroy a family as well, but some more common causes for a collapsed family are actions that lead to disagreements and thus result in a disconnect between family members or even hatred. In Poe’s story, the reason for the destruction of the family is an unforgivable act performed by a brother upon his sister, who appear to be the last in the lineage of their family. Roderick attempts to murder his sister and ends up being killed himself by his very prey. This would, indeed, qualify as an extreme disagreement in that one believes that the other should not continue to live and the other does. This creates a weakness in the structure of the House of Usher. The word Usher is not only the name of the family but an action that means to move. This is ironical because of the diseased form of both Roderick and Madeline. Also, there is a larger concept of moving into a new realm, whether it is insanity or death.

With the link between the concept of the building and the family being so strong, the details of the mansion can be interpreted as the state of the family. Upon arriving to Roderick’s home, the narrator describes having “a sense of insufferable gloom that pervaded my spirit,” going on to say that it is indescribable and words such as desolate and terrible do not do it justice (Poe 72). With the home being a physical representation of the state of the family, there is a similar description of the appearance of Roderick when the two finally meet. The narrator says, “… I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!” (Poe 76). Upon seeing, for the first time, the home of the Ushers, the narrator is entranced with the horror of the landscape upon which the house sits, as well as the home itself. Also, when the two childhood friends meet once again, the narrator is intrigued by his close friend’s emaciated figure. There exists, also, the fact that the inside of the house is even worse than the outside, and extends into Roderick.

It is apparent from the account of the meeting between the narrator and Roderick that something is terribly wrong with his old friend, “His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirit seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision… which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement” (Poe 77). This observation is very similar to what is now known as being bi-polar, a psychological disorder in which a person will go between being very happy one minute to very sad the next. While the setting of the story is very vague, only having so much information to know the season of the year, it is not possible to know if medical doctors of the time know even what a psychological disorder is. As a matter of fact, the narrator meets the family’s physician on the stairwell en route to proceeding to Roderick’s chambers and notices a look of confusion and bafflement (Poe 75). Entering the house itself the narrator is able to see the rotting wood and crumbling stones that are barely able to support the structure of the house. Both houses are in deteriorating conditions and will soon fail when things come to a head as the psyche of Roderick breaks after trying to murder his sister, Madeline, for a reason that is very close to being as vague as the setting, but may be up for debate.

It is apparent that Roderick’s mind is going which would make almost anything he says unreliable. It is also apparent that Roderick and Madeline are brother and sister, or even twins. As the narrator helps Roderick place Madeline in a coffin, “A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins…” (Poe 84). But if the narrator knows that he cannot trust what a madman says, then why would he believe him when he says that Madeline is dead? He believes him because he is his oldest of friends and also feels sorry for him. His mind is going and at the same time his sister has died and appears to be that way after having handled her. One of the most twisted images of this tale of horror is the smile that rests upon Madeline’s face even after she has been entombed in the cell (Poe 84). The smile on Madeline’s face is horrific because in death, humans tend to expect that the dead look peaceful, which helps them to gain closure. However, because she lacks that look of peace it is hard for the last Usher to move on with his life. This is apparent from the fact that the narrator notices that the disillusioned Roderick has gone farther off the deep end, “He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step” (Poe 84). This is associated with schizophrenia, another psychological disorder in which individuals who suffer from it see and hear things that are not actually there.

Another powerful image in Poe’s tale is the fact that Madeline is placed in a vault that was formerly used for torture in medieval times and later was used as a place of storage for gunpowder. The tomb is described as being small, dark, and damp, so damp, in fact, that the torches that the two friends are using are almost smothered because of the moisture in the air. This former torture chamber turned tomb also lies directly beneath the resting chamber of the narrator. It is appropriate that Madeline’s vengeance comes in the room above which her prison lies because it is as though on her ascent to Heaven she must take with her the one who has wronged her.

Also, at the climax of story, when Roderick is being read a story by the narrator, the audience receives an image of Roderick being almost childlike because of his guilt over what he has done to his sister that he claimed to have loved so dearly. There is a sense that Roderick is rocking back and forth in the narrator’s arms until the moment when both men hear Madeline clawing her way out of the dungeon and storming up the staircase for her revenge. Then he begins rambling to the narrator almost incoherently about something that he has done that is so terrible and the reason for his madness, he says, “I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb!” (Poe 89). This is the first time that the narrator finds out about what has truly happened and realizes that who he thought was his very close friend was actually someone that he knew very little about.

Madeline serves as the one that finally takes down the House, in both senses, because not only does she receive her vengeance upon her brother but she destroys the building which her family has lived in for, apparently, a very long time. It can be assumed that the cause for the actual collapse of the mansion is that the powder from the vault in which Madeline was kept, was set off. The way in which she destroys her sibling is through fear, she “bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated” (Poe 89). Roderick made a statement earlier in the tale, upon first meeting with the narrator, telling him that the way in which he will die is through fear (Poe 77). By saying that Roderick fell victim what he feared, the audience then knows that Roderick was planning to murder his sister all along but could not actually do it because of his undying love for her and needed the help of the narrator, because he knew that someone he has known for such a long time would do anything for him seeing that he is in the state that he is in.

Edgar Allan Poe does a wonderful job of showing the psychotic tendencies that all people are capable of having no matter what the circumstances may be with “The Fall of the House of Usher.” His gothic tale possesses all of the qualities necessary, whether it is the barren landscape, old world architecture, focus on art, and, in this case, the debatable topic of female heroism. Poe masters the art of horror and the ability to scare his audience by a means that would be relatively new at the time of release of this short story. Aside from the question of whether or not Madeline would be considered a heroic figure in this story, another topic that this story brings up is whether the subject matter in this story is relevant to the life of Edgar Allan Poe. That discussion should be saved for another time.

Works Cited
Poe, Edgar Allan (2004). “The Fall of the House of Usher”. In Corinne Demas (Ed.), Great American Short Stories: From Hawthorne to Hemingway (pp. 72-90). New York: Barnes & Noble.

The Curious Case of Roger Button

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is only the second fantasy tale written by the author who is synonymous with stories of flappers and high-society (Fitzgerald 1). The characters that Fitzgerald uses in this story show elements of the every changing society of southern America, according to a northerner who was, at the time, fairly well off. The most important characters in the short story are the title character and his father, Roger Button, as they are the characters that get the most attention from the audience. Much can be said about the main character and what he may represent from the pre-Civil War period up to the authors own time of existence. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses Roger in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” to depict the idea that social changes were during the Civil War period that would lead up to the society of the 1920s.

Fitzgerald uses Roger Button as a way of showing how America changes by revealing small aspects of the southern culture at the time and how his son, or his product, does not conform to the culture at the time. The idea that Roger Button represents a change in the Civil War south is apparent when he and his wife “were fifty years ahead of style when they decided, one day in the summer of 1860, that their first baby should be born in a hospital” (Fitzgerald 2). There is a fashion image in this quote that makes having a child seem to be in style with the period. However, the difference between others of the period and that of the Buttons is that they were ahead of fashion, fifty years to be exact. Simple math can show that fifty years after 1860 would equal 1910, not only at the dawn of the new century but ten years after it. Also, the style, according to Fitzgerald, of the time would be to give birth to the child at home, hopefully with a doctor present. The fact that the Buttons choose to have their first child in this fashion is also important because it shows that they, or at least Roger as his wife has no focus in the story whatsoever, instinctively go to the hospital for the birth of the child as best as can be determined. There is no way of knowing whether or not there was any sort debate or discussion between the two parents but the actions of Mr. Button in rushing to the hospital help to lead to the conclusion of instinct over discussion.

Roger Button is portrayed as a prestigious man in his community and is even given the nickname of “Cuff” which refers to cufflinks that a man wears on his sleeves (Fitzgerald 2). The fact that Roger is given this specific nickname implies class and wealth which would be needed in order to possess cufflinks or clothes that would be deemed fashionable during the time. Also, the fact that the family name is Button gives connotations of neatness which goes along with the aspect of class and living the high life. So when the author says that, “Mr. Roger Button, the president of Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware, began to run toward Doctor Keene with much less dignity that was expected from a Southern gentleman of that picturesque period,” the actions of Mr. Button go against what he portrays in his daily life (Fitzgerald 2). The fact that Mr. Button is the president of a company that sells hardware is essential to his role in the story. Hardware is another term for tools, which are used to help build structures that will hopefully be stable. This relates to the character because he helps in producing an extremely different generation than the one Roger resides. Mr. Button breaks his image of fashion and class when he begins to run instead of walk toward the man that has helped deliver his child. This act of running is less dignified because a man of that period should not show panic, which shows weakness in his character. Fitzgerald uses the word picturesque because it implies a still, frozen image which is different from the action that Roger takes, thus showing how he commits an act that is unusual of the time.

The concept of the clothing that the Buttons wear continues to be important, especially to Roger because of his need to be accepted into the community of the time. Mr. Button even tries to force his need of appearance onto his son, Benjamin, when he goes to a department store to get some clothes for him. He tries to convince himself that his son needs boys’ clothes because “the notion of dressing his son in men’s clothes was repugnant to him” (Fitzgerald 7). His preferred goal in finding clothes for his son was to find a rather large boy’s suit and then alter the appearance of his son than that which is natural, including changing his hair color and removing the long beard from his face (Fitzgerald 8). The author goes on to say that Roger would be saving his place in society if he were to manage these changes in the appearance of his son which he treasures so dearly. Roger’s belief that hiding his son’s true appearance would save his status in the society of Baltimore shows how important he finds the opinions of others. He goes so far as pass his son off as his brother when Roger gets to be fifty and Benjamin twenty years old. However, this does mean that as time progresses Roger becomes more comfortable with who his son really is and what he has done.

When Benjamin finally becomes twenty years old, he is allowed to go to work for his father at his hardware company and is also allowed to go to social events, specifically dances. During one outing, in which Benjamin becomes infatuated with a girl, Roger tries to talk with him about his business. Roger tells Benjamin that “’old fellows like me can’t learn new tricks… it’s you youngsters with energy and vitality that have the great future before you’” (Fitzgerald 16). Roger has become accepting of the fact that his generation is not always going to be around and will have to hand over what he knows to his son, or the next generation. His handing over of the company also signifies how generations pass their work onto others so that they are hopefully continued. When he says that he cannot learn new tricks, he is telling his son that he will not be able to compete with up and coming generations who have more energy and vitality than he does. That energy and vitality will be used to build onto what the previous generations have done and, therefore, make it great. The hardware company is representative of America and the passing of Roger’s company to Benjamin is symbolic of the Civil War generation passing their nation on to the next.

The fact that Roger makes the decision to do something that is ahead of his time, he is given a gift that is different from anything of the time. Roger is different from his peers and, at the time, he is shunned for it, even by his family doctor that has been serving him for forty years (Fitzgerald 3). Yet, as time passes he comes to be more accepted in his society that he once reigned over. The ultimate image of Fitzgerald’s tale, is when Mr. Button sees his son, “wrapped in a voluminous white blanket, and partly crammed into one of the cribs, there sat an old man apparently about seventy years of age” (Fitzgerald 5). At this moment, Roger sees the next generation that he has created wrapped in a white blanket. The color white has connotations of purity and innocence, meaning that this generation that will follow Roger’s is, at the moment, without guilt of having done anything to the world. The way Benjamin is resting in the crib is not resting at all; he would have to be very uncomfortable as he is a fully grown man shoved into a crib, which is obviously built for an infant. This shoving of Benjamin into a crib represents how the current generation will not agree with the one that is to come. The fact that Benjamin ages in reverse, and is seventy years old means that he will die in 1930, just after the age of the flapper and the Roaring Twenties, which is known for being a time of social rebellion for the first time in American history. This is an implication that Fitzgerald is bringing the Civil War generation into a meeting with the time that he knows so well. The author is showing how the actions taken in a rebellion of states has lead to a time of social rebellion.

With Roger representing Civil War America and Benjamin representing the America of the Roaring Twenties, Fitzgerald shows how the actions of a country will have internal consequences. Whether they are interpreted as good or bad is at the discretion of those within the country itself. Of course, it is impossible to be aware of all of the consequences that a person’s actions may have, which is what Fitzgerald portrays when Roger rushes to the hospital to meet his son for the first time. On his way there, Roger assumes, just as any person would, that his baby will meet all of his expectations in what a normal baby should be like. However, when he sees his offspring for the first time he is unwilling to believe that his actions have led to what he sees before him. In Fitzgerald’s world the individuals involved in the Civil War are able to see the consequences of their actions.

In writing about something such as “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”, F. Scott Fitzgerald is saying that when an individual has the capability to do more than what the norm of the time is, he can create something that will influence the future. The actions of Roger show how he does things that are different from the time in which he lives. Mr. Button tries to be a part of his generation when he goes to get clothes for his son but ultimately recognizes what the next generation is and becomes accepting of it. Mr. Button is a symbol for great ideas and what they do to the current time and help make breakthroughs for the generations to come.

Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” 1922. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: And Other Tales of the Jazz Age. Ed. Thomas Fasano. California: Coyote Canyon, 2008. 1-30.

Spartan Swords and Cinema Style

Brutal is the only way to describe Zack Snyder’s 300. It is a movie filled with blood, guts, and cinematic beauty. Coming from a graphic novel, written by Frank Miller, it could be hard to capture the emotions of this movie on a reel of film. But Zack Snyder and his team make that job look very simple.

The fourteenth scene of this movie shows how an action movie should be filmed, taking different approaches to hits, stabs, screams, war cries, and everything else a good action movie should have. This is the most famous scene from the movie, in which Leonidas and his 300 warriors first fight against the Persian armies of Xerxes. Beginning with Leonidas coming down from the hill where he speaks with Ephialtes, the deformed and outcast wannabe Spartan warrior, and giving a battle order to Artemis, his loyal friend and Captain, this scene lasts approximately five minutes and eight seconds. The end of the scene comes when Leonidas pulls his sword from the body of a dead Persian as the camera tilts up.

The scene, as well as the entire movie, seems to be tinted with different colors. In this particular scene there is a golden hue about everything. When the first wave of Persian soldiers come around a bend on the cliff, where the battle takes place, the sky is shown with the sun casting rich gold onto their battlefield, this adds to the dramatic effect of this particular battle. The next shot pulls back from Leonidas’ helmeted face to reveal his loyal followers behind him with tall spears in the air. Here we see an extreme contrast of the golden tone of their skin and the darkness of the shadows. The horse hair on Leonidas’ helmet is almost unnoticeable because of how dark it is. We can also see this with the capes that the warriors wear. The light that is directly on the cape makes it appear to be almost a strawberry color but where the cape is tied around their necks, it is almost black because of the shadow that is cast from their heads and helmets. The two colors that mainly appear in this scene are red and gold. Audiences will associate these two colors with royalty and warfare which adds to the epic fight that is taking place between two giants of combat.

One thing that must be remembered about this movie is that it is intentionally over-the-top while still remaining true to the history books. Whether it’s the executioner with blades for arms, the enormous height of the god-king Xerxes, or the earthquake effect of the Persians readying battle formations that occurs at the beginning of this scene; all of these things help to show the devastating power of the Persian empire that only a few Greeks are about to face. To help add to this over-the-top quality, a well constructed musical score is introduced at the time of the Persians wrapping around the bend of the steep cliff which helps the brilliant color of gold play its dramatic role in the picture. With low, resonating bass drums, crashing cymbals, all male chorus, and trumpets doing their part; anyone would get the sense of epic war and waning hope for survival. The bass drums are intended to be a nondiegetic aspect, but they almost sound like war drums, which would be used by major armies in ancient times causing these drums to toy with the line between the story world and the filming world. Another musical quality of the scene is when the Persians sound their trumpets for the charge, this also plays with the line between diegetic and nondiegetic aspects in this film. The music stops when the Persian army crashes into the Spartan shields making the watcher focus on the screams and cries of the soldiers until the Spartans stop allowing themselves to be pushed back by the barbarians and dig into the sand. They then use their shields to push the front line of the enemy off of them and stab into their flesh with sharp spears and deadly accuracy. The low tone of the drums picks back up as well as the trumpets and horns when the next row of Persians slam into the shields of the Spartans. The score in this scene ends when Leonidas and his men break ranks and take on the Persians that have not yet been slaughtered and a variation between slow motion and real time speed takes place in a single shot.

The cinematography throughout the movie is both technical and innovative, following the guidelines of camera work and allowing for more exciting methods of filming the action that takes place in this amazing battle scene. An example of one of the innovative aspects of the scene is where we first see Leonidas in his helmet. The camera is first focused on his eyes then zooms out to reveal the soldiers standing behind him. This could have been done in many other ways, such as having a more open shot showing the soldiers in ranks ready to fight with their helmets on, however this would not have been as intense as showing their leader ready to fight and giving a speech to his men to raise morale in them for the fight which they are about to engage. Another innovative technique that is employed is when the Persians first crash into the Spartans. The camera is set within the group of Spartans which allows us to see what the Spartans would see, allowing for a type of point-of-view shot, even rocking back when the impact of the collision is first felt. Also, there is a shot where one of the Spartans is cut by a Persian spear and he takes his revenge by stabbing the Persian with his own spear. We never see which Persian it is that cuts the warrior; we only see his spear point. Then the camera is set back far enough to see between two columns of Spartans, the one who was cut and one that we must acknowledge is there without ever really seeing him. At this point we see the angry Spartan take his revenge on the Persian who committed the atrocity. Yet another example of innovative camera work is when there is a cut to the camera set high in the Hot Gates, where the battle takes place, and there is a slow tilt up revealing the massive numbers of dead Persians and the red-caped backs of the Spartans advancing forward. This helps to show how the Spartans are like a swarm of locusts destroying the fields of Persians in front of them, slowly but surely. Finally, there is a long shot focused on Leonidas as he moves through the Persians killing one after another. This shot lasts for a little over one minute but varies between slow motion and real time. In this shot, the camera zooms in and out and moves along with Leonidas as he moves forward. There is one point in which Leonidas throws his spear into the body of a Persian and the camera follows the spear through the air. When the spear lands in the body of the Persian, the camera moves back to Leonidas and is covered for a brief moment by a Persian approaching the Spartans. The Persian is out of focus at this point, providing evidence for the conclusion that the type of lens used for this shot may be a telephoto lens. This makes for an astounding final shot for this scene and also proves to be the most famous shot of the movie.

The biggest aspect of editing in this scene is the amount of slow motion shots that are used, as well as the computer generated special effects. There are three shots of the Persians running toward the Spartans which are all in slow motion. This helps to show the drama of the scene and the emotion that is felt by the participants in the battle, as well as slows down the momentum of the action allowing the audience to feel and see everything that happens. There is another shot that moves between slow motion and real time, in which Leonidas takes on a number of Persians by himself. This allows the viewer to see the strength, speed, and ability possessed by the warrior king. The shot only moves to slow motion when he comes to face his next victim showing his technique and shear ferocity. There are a few instances of CG used in this scene, such as the spear that is thrown hundreds of feet from the Spartans into the body of a mounted Persian officer who tells them to surrender. This could not possibly happen for a two reasons; the first is the most obvious in that the actor would die. Another is that it would not be physically possible to throw a spear the distance that is shown in the movie. Another instance in which CG is used is when four Spartan spears are thrust into the body of one Persian soldier splattering blood and moving smoothly back out of his body. Also, in the shot where Leonidas takes on the Persians, he slices off the leg of one of them and blood flies through the air. While these things are obviously computer generated effects, they add to the over-the-top quality of the movie, like all the other editing techniques that are used, whether it is the obvious cuts or the hidden ones.

This scene is the most famous of the movie and rightfully deserves it. This scene shows the ferocity of three hundred warriors fighting for their survival from a tyrannical ruler who is bent on world domination. Zack Snyder and his team have done a wonderful job putting this scene together and making it as epic as it possible while still following some conventional rules and playing with others. 300 is a cinematic giant and the fourteenth scene is a great example of why it remains absolutely astounding.

Works Cited
300. Dir. Zack Snyder. Perf. Gerard Butler, Rodrigo Santoro. DVD. Warner Bros., 2006.