DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY IN: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER BY: TREVOR SHIELDS

WHAT IS DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER? -Ever seen the movie Fight Club? Or The Secret Window? Yeah that’s it. -Basically, an aspect of your life sucks so bad that instead of accepting it, your psyche splits.

SO WHAT DOES D.I.D. HAVE TO DO WITH THE HOUSE OF USHER? I propose that there is evidence of two cases of D.I.D. within the text. Case #1: Roderick and The Narrator are the same guy. Case #2: Roderick, Madeline, The Narrator are the same person

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR) “What was it--I paused to think--what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?” “ It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression” Narrator upon first encountering the Usher House Rational Dissecting Provoked Need to validate Why Possibilities?

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR) “I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn […] and gazed down--but with a shudder even more thrilling than before-- upon the remodeled and inverted images of the grey sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows” “Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting.” “distant part of the country-” “Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend.” Image of reflection i.e. two images of 1 subject Many years and a country separate the two. Intimate at boyhood yet little was known?

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR)

“While the objects around me […] were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy--while 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. “Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!” Interior is strange, but known Upon meeting Roderick, the Narrator contradicts himself.

PROVING IT: CASE #1 (RODERICK AND NARRATOR) “from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name” “the dwelling which he tenanted, and from which, for many years, he had never ventured forth” “ancient race” “Incestuous and inadmissible passion” “a tenderly beloved sister; his sole companion for long years-his last and only relative on earth.” “lady Madeline” Patrimony Solitude Pressure to procreate and continue the family name Quixotic reference

WAIT WHAT? Yeah that’s right, incest! An “inadmissible passion” to sleep with your sister seems a legit reason to want to split identities to me. But wait that isn’t even the craziest part…. ENTER CASE TWO!

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY) “Her figure, her air, her features-all, in their very minutest development were those […] of the Roderick Usher who sat beside me.” “A feeling of stupor oppressed me” “he had buried his face in his hands” “trickled many passionate tears.” “For several day ensuing, her name was unmentioned” Exactly Roderick’s duplicate in female form Narrator feels oppressed? Why? And Rod, why so many tears? Wait who is dying?

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY) “the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.” “a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit” “our books” “the lady Madeline was no more” “The exact similitude between brother and sister here again startled and confounded me.” Intimacy of spirits btwn Usher and Roderick in absence of Lady M. Our? Death! More similarity

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY) “His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten.” “The pallor of [Roderick’s] countenance had assumed, […] a more ghastly hue-but the luminescence of his eye had utterly gone out.” vs “gradual wasting away [of Madeline]” “I beheld [Roderick] gazing upon vacancy for long hours” vs “[Madeline’s] transient affections of a partially cataleptical character.” “I [the Narrator] felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his [Roderick’s] own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.” “nervousness [Narrator]” vs “nervous agitation [Rod]” “ an instinctive spirit prompted me to certain low- indefinite sounds” vs “acuteness of senses” Roderick dilutes Begins to look/act like Lady M. Narrator begins to adopt Rod’s maladies ALL IDENTITIES TO YOUR POSTS! Its assimilation time!

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY) “Mad Trist” “I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin.” “Madman!” “[Madeline] fell heavily inward on the person of her brother” “I fled aghast.” “Trist”= OE “Tryst” which means encounter, ergo “Mad Encounter” Hollow b/c nobodies in it Madman! = Denial: Last ditch effort of conflicting personalities Here’s Maddy! Oh and Rod and the Narrator. Only the Narrator can leave. Note that “I fled” signals singularity of person.

PROVING IT: CASE #2 (THE TRIPLE ENTITY THEORY)

“the once barley-descernable fissure […] rapidly widened” “there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind” the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight--my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder--there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters--and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher". Fissure=Seperation of Insanity and Reason: also female/male identities. Whirlwind= tumult of confrontation and re- cohesion of multiple identities into one Satelite= Reason No house, only 1 person/ identity left The tarn= the calm of reason and sanity

CONCLUSION AND QUESTIONS What are the significances of the three identities? If this is in fact a case of D.I.D., who is the real, single, character left standing? In contrast, what if the narrator is insane and never left gazing at his reflection in the tarn?