Question

IF YOU ANSWER YOU GET 100 POINTS

The house of ushers character (Rodrick) analysis grid:

What are 5 things he does

what are 5 things he said or thought

5 ways he changes throughout the story

how others feel about rodrick (5 examples)

conflict in the story

authors theme or point of veiw

Answer 1

Roderick is intellectual and bookish, and his twin sister, Madeline, is ill and bedridden. Roderick's inability to distinguish fantasy from reality resembles his sister's physical weakness. Poe uses these characters to explore the philosophical mystery of the relationship between mind and body.

Answer 2

Roderick Usher is not well. While parts of his affliction seem to manifest themselves physically, in his overly-acute senses, his illness is primarily a mental one. While his sister is cataleptic and wasting away, Roderick is tormented by, to be quite honest, his own fear. By his own admission, he doesn’t so much fear any particular thing as he fears his own fear. And one day, he predicts, this affliction will kill him.

Which it does, pretty much. One conclusion to be drawn from the final scene is that Roderick dies of fear. Madeline rushes upon him and he falls to the floor a corpse, too terrified to go on living. As we’ll talk about in Madeline’s “Character Analysis,” it’s even possible that Madeline is just a physical embodiment of Roderick’s fears.

Credits to: thompcd

Not mine!