A Study Of The Fall Of The House Of Usher From The Perspective Of Psychoanalysis

The Fall of the House of Usher is written by Edgar Allen Poe, American poet，shortnovelist and artistic critic in the19th century. In the terms of tales, Poe is regarded asbeing in the same category with Mark Twin and Faulkner, as he is the initiator of thedetective novel and science fiction, and he promotes the artistic status of the Gothicnovel by terrific psychological writing techniques. The Fall of the House of Usher isconsidered as a psychological Gothic novel. In Poe’s psychological novel,strangeness and horror permeate into each other and almost one hundred and fiftyyears after his death, Edgar Allan Poe’s works continue to frighten, influence andinspire writers and readers all over the world. The Fall of the House of Usherillustrates the best artistic style of Poe’s, which is also universally acknowledged oneof the most popular tales. Almost all the horrific elements are involved in The Fall ofthe House of Usher: death drive, premature burial, murder mystery, ghost, evil, crimeand dissociation of personality.Artistically, until now most scholars interpret Poe from the perspective of the poeticaesthetics and detective approach. But this thesis tries to analyze the relationshipbetween Poe’s experience and personality and his The Fall of the House of Usherwith psychoanalytic approach used firstly by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Thepsychological description of the characters helps the author to reveal to the reader theprocess of disintegration and annihilation of human mind. By analyzing Poe’s artistictechniques of writing, the readers may appreciate the effect of terror in the story. Thethesis further points out that the characters depicted by Edgar Allen Poe are mirrors, reflecting the complexity of humanity―a combination of goodness and evil, love andhatred, which makes people feel the meaning of life and death.