All 'The Fall of the House of Usher' Poe References Explained
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Poe then went to live with John and Frances Allan, wealthy theatergoers who knew his parents, both actors, from the Richmond, Virginia, stage. Like Poe’s mother, Frances Allan was chronically ill, and Poe experienced her sickness much as he did his mother’s. His relationship with John Allan, who was loving but moody, generous but demanding, was emotionally turbulent. With Allan’s financial help, Poe attended school in England and then enrolled at the University of Virginia in 1826, but he was forced to leave after two semesters. Although Poe blamed Allan’s stinginess, his own gambling debts played a large role in his fiscal woes.
Each Usher sibling is named for a Poe character.
Roger Corman's 1961 film The Pit and the Pendulum, which stars Vincent Price and boasts a script by horror legend Richard Matheson based on Poe's short story. Leo's incredibly supportive and empathetic boyfriend is named for Poe's story "The Journal of Julius Rodman." Julius also owns a black cat called Pluto, which is the name of the leading feline in Poe's "The Black Cat" — and a big clue to Leo's fate. Like Madeline, Roderick is connected to the mansion, the titular House of Usher.
Breaking Down ‘The Fall Of The House Of Usher’s’ Edgar Allen Poe References, From ‘The Raven’ to ‘The Black Cat’
But Frederick's removal of his wife's teeth, one of the most disturbing and WTF moments of the entire show, appears to have been loosely inspired by a story called "Berenice". That grim tale sees a man obsessing over cousin's teeth and eventually removing them after she dies. Contemporary readers and critics interpreted the story as a somewhat sensationalized account of Poe’s supposed madness. (As a recluse, Poe often invited such accusations.) Later scholarship pursued alternative interpretations.
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In a neat bit of production design, Vic and Allessandra's heart mesh design has a circular disk at the front with smaller circles within it. And it's almost certainly a reference to the "The Tell-Tale Heart," whose protagonist feels "vexed" by the pale, filmy blue eye of his elderly companion staring at him — so much so that it drives the protagonist to murder. Roderick Usher takes the credit for most of them, but several Poe poems are read aloud by characters during The Fall of the House of Usher. Roderick Usher’s first wife, the love of his life and mother of Freddie and Tammy, is named for Poe’s 1849 poem, in which the narrator laments his lover who died. In the series, Roderick constantly quotes the poem to Annabel Lee as if he wrote it himself. Poe famously loved ciphers, so Flanagan has peppered his episodes with references for sleuths to find — the director has even dropped references to his own work throughout the series.
This Raven's Got a Hold on Me: The Fall of the House of Usher - Reactor - Tor.com
This Raven's Got a Hold on Me: The Fall of the House of Usher - Reactor.
Posted: Tue, 17 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
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Some scholars speculated that Poe may have attached special importance to the fact that Roderick and Madeline are twins, noting that Poe previously investigated the phenomenon of the double in “Morella” (1835) and “William Wilson” (1839). Other scholars pointed to the work as an embodiment of Poe’s doctrine of l’art pour l’art (“art for art’s sake”), which held that art needs no moral, political, or didactic justification. The secret that is buried and then comes to light (represented by Madeline) is never revealed. The symbol which represents the secret – Madeline herself – is hidden away by Roderick, but that symbol returns, coming to light at the end of the story and (in good Gothic fashion) destroying the family for good. Roderick grows more erratic in his behaviour, and the narrator reads to his friend to try to soothe him.
Flanagan finishes his Netflix contract on a high, gleefully capturing Poe’s magic, eerie romance and sense of dread. His shows have become the streaming service’s best offerings for spooky season, and it is hard to imagine how that void will be filled. It’s not perfect – the order in which the Poe family meet their fates is a case of diminishing returns, as its most intriguing members are dispatched too quickly.
Might we then interpret Roderick as a symbol of the conscious mind – struggling to conceal some dark ‘secret’ and make himself presentable to his friend, the narrator – and Madeline as a symbol of the unconscious? Note how Madeline is barely seen for much of the story, and the second time she appears she is literally buried (repressed?) within the vault. Morella Usher is named for Poe's 1835 short story, which fittingly revolves around a type of black nightshade. This is a reference to the experimental new nightshade agent for paralysis that Freddie uses on her to punish her for attending Perry's doomed orgy.
Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” wasoriginally published in September of 1839. In the tale, the narrator visits achildhood friend who is sick and in need of company. The house is old anddecrepit, and it seems to cause the madness of the last surviving Ushersiblings, Roderick and Madeline. When Madeline succumbs to an illness, she isburied in a house vault, only to return after a premature burial. Madelineemerges from the vault the night of an intense storm and collapses on herbrother in death. Rather than convey a lesson, Poe's story explores gothic elementsof the supernatural and evil to convey this tale of horror.
The Raven
Guilt permeates every frame of Flanagan’s Poe universe, and buys into not so much the horror as the terror. Although it borrows its title directly from one of the Poe's most famous stories, Episode 7 really has a couple of different sources. The death of Frederick Usher (Henry Thomas), which is caused by a pendulous piece of building material swinging slowly down to cut him open, is almost straight out of Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum".
He believes the mansion is sentient and responsible, in part, for his deteriorating mental health and melancholy. Despite this admission, Usher remains in the mansion and composes art containing the Usher mansion or similar haunted mansions. His mental health deteriorates faster as he begins to hear Madeline's attempts to escape the underground vault she was buried in, and he eventually meets his death out of fear in a manner similar to the House of Usher's cracking and sinking. Fearing that her body will be exhumed for medical study, Roderick insists that she be entombed for two weeks in the family tomb located in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put Madeline's body in the tomb, whereupon the narrator realizes that Madeline and Roderick are twins.
The core drug at the heart of the house of Usher's success with Fortunato is called Ligadone, which seems like a reference to Poe's story "Ligeia." In this tale, a woman called Rowena dies of an illness but is resurrected as Ligeia, who was the narrator's first wife. As an added bonus, the narrator is addicted to opium, and the whole thing could just be a hallucination; Ligadone is, of course, an opioid. The finale is another episode that takes its inspiration from a few different Poe stories. The titular poem, "The Raven" references the tragic death of Roderick's granddaughter Lenore. Roderick and Madeline bricking up Griswold (Michael Trucco) behind a wall in the basement is the same unpleasant method of murder found in "The Cask of Amontillado", complete with fool's costume. Meanwhile, Madeline's death at the hands of her own brother is pretty much straight out of "The Fall of the House of Usher" — though his grisly technique is more akin to "Some Words with a Mummy."
It's a fitting string of awful circumstances suffered by the namesake for Hamill's character, who has seen and covered up some real shit with the Usher family — a doomed sinking ship in itself. Like Wednesday, Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher is brimming with references to Edgar Allan Poe beyond the core narrative of the author's 1839 story. But they're not all as obvious as you might think, with many hidden within the rotting eaves of the macabre horror-drama series. During one sleepless night, the narrator reads aloud to Usher as eerie sounds are heard throughout the mansion. He witnesses Madeline's reemergence and the subsequent, simultaneous death of the twins.
In a shocking development, Madeline breaks out of her coffin and enters the room, and Roderick confesses that he buried her alive. Madeline attacks her brother and kills both him and herself in the struggle, and the narrator flees the house. It is a stormy night, and as he leaves he sees the house fall down, collapsing into the lake which reflects the house’s image. In a scene in episode 6, you'll spot Lenore Usher (Kyliegh Curran) watching a movie with her mother, Morella (Crystal Balint), who is recovering from the horrific burns she received at Prospero's ill-fated "Masque of the Red Death" orgy from episode 2.
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