Introduction: Literary theory is a collection of philosophies that enables a reader to read a text through a certain perspective and find new meaning in a text. When discussing ideas from literary theory, what isn’t present in the text is just as important as what is present. So, for example, if I am reading a text with all-male characters from a male narrator, I might choose to interpret this text through a feminist perspective (feminism meaning total equality for both males and females) to come up with theories as to why there is a lack of female influence on themes.
Directions: Work/Reading before the blog post:
1. Use the following site to learn more about literary theory and different perspectives.
2.You will choose one of the following perspectives: feminism, psychoanalytic, new historicism, postcolonial, or Marxism.
3. Choose either “Fall of the House of Usher” or “To be Taken with a Grain of Salt”
4. Read and learn more about the theory you choose and apply those essential questions to a summer reading text you selected. You will bring your questions to class.
Prompt: In a well-written response, use the theory you choose as a context for interpretation. What arguments can be made about the themes or the characters of your text? You must quote from bothyour theory from the webpage as well as your text. Identify 3 arguments on themes or characters and provide a refutation to one of those arguments. Additionally, you may use examples from society at large to help support your explanation. 250 words.
2019-2020 English I Honors 
Blog post two- The text “Fall of the House of Usher” is a prime example of a text that could be psychoanalytically criticized. Roderick Usher is anxious and fearful character. “I have,” he said, “no fear of pain, but only the fear of its result — of terror. I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: fear!” This is referring to Roderick and his battle with seemingly unexplainable fear. “In the studies by Sigmund Freud it has “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15). shown that your unconsciousness has the ability to cause emotions such as fear.” This is an exact quote from Sigmund’s research.
“As I placed my hand on his shoulder, I felt that his whole body was trembling; a sickly smile touched his lips; he spoke in a low, quick, and nervous voice as if he did not know I was there.” This a quote from the story showing internal fear. It helps to show a large part of the story which is anxiety. According to Freud’s research he organizes certain events during early development, “Freud organized these events into developmental stages involving relationships with parents and drives of desire and pleasure…” Usher’s relationship with his twin sister could have an effect on his anxieties and fear. After Madeline is put into the vault in the house of Usher. His love for her manifested into bringing her to life when he heard stories. It seems to me that it’s metaphorically showing how real the effects of fear and anxiety are.
A final statement in Sigmund Freud’s research is, “Tyson reminds us, however, that “…repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions…we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’…our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress” (15).” As previously stated Usher saw his Twin sister because of a possible past experience. He most likely repressed some feelings of guilt. In the text “The Fall of the House of Usher” it says, “There was still a little color in her face and there seemed to be a smile on her lips.” This sounds as though Usher could’ve had some effect in her death. As the doctors were fascinated with her illness he may have wanted her life to fall short. If he in fact did commit this act he would have felt bad about his actions and caused his twin to manifest as his manifested guilt. This shows another part of the character Roderick Usher. These are all ways that “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a good specimen for psychoanalytical criticism. -Darius Melton
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you had used great evidence and you explained your evidence very well
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I liked how you related your evidence from “The Fall of the House of Usher” to the evidence from Freud’s research.
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I liked your evidence, and I really love how you explained it. Excellent work!
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You did a Great job explaining your evidence!
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I like how well your evidence describes the psychoanalytical criticism on this story
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I love the way you worded you explanation. It made it much easier to comprehend what you were trying to say. Good job!
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I like how well you explained your evidence!
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i agree with this, your evidence explained your thinking very well.
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I like how you related his fear and acknowledgment of fear to freud’s Research. Very well written Darius !
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You used great text evidence to support your idea.
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You used really good evidence and explained it very well.
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Good job. Your explanation and evidence were excellent, you really explained it terrifically.
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I love the evidence you used and I think you explained it very well. Nice work
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you explained your evidence really well.
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You have great evidence and provide a good explanation of each piece of evidence. Good job!
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I think your assumption on his possible fault in the cause of Madeline’s death is interesting, and I love how you explained you’re evidence. Great job.
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I like your explanation, you did a very good job at relating the story and the research!!
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Great evidence and explanation!
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I like the way you organized your response. It helps us know what the arguments are and to understand what you are saying. Great job!
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I agree with your evidence and your overall analysis of this article, good job.
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I like the evidence you provided.
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I liked your evidence and how you explained it.
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I love how you took this story and explained how you feel he may have commited the death and how you used direct quote’s from the story. I agree with you as well, I think “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a good speciemen for psychoanalytical criticism.
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You did a really good job with the evidence
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When I first read “The Fall of the House of Usher”, it just seemed like a very weird, creepy short story. It wasn’t until after I studied the psychoanalytic perspective that I realized how different the purpose of the story was. Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory that is aimed to treat mental disorders by bringing the unconscious thoughts of the mind (desires, fears, needs, conflicts etc) to light; so that we can recognize when our thoughts are actually just thoughts, and they don’t control your decisions.
Roderick Usher suffers from a disease of the mind, and has hypersensitivity to light, taste, sound and tactile sensations. Part one of “The Fall of the House of Usher” says, “He suffered much from a sickly increase in the feeling of all the senses; he could eat only the most tasteless food; all flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds which did not fill him with horror.” Roderick is a perfect candidate for psychoanalysis, because he lets his thoughts consume him, and believes that they are alive, that they control him. In the studies of Sigmund Freud, it says, “Tyson reminds us, however, that “…repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions…we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’…our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress” (15). To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.” This study shows that Roderick willingly lets his thoughts control his every move and he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.
The unnamed narrator is also a candidate for psychoanalytic criticism.
While perfectly fine at the beginning of the story, towards the end he begins to experience the same feelings as Roderick, almost as if his disease rubbed off on him. Part three of “The Fall of the House of Usher” says, “I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep did not come — while the hours passed. My mind fought against the nervousness. I tried to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt was due to the gloomy room, to the dark wall coverings, which in a rising wind moved on the walls. But my efforts were useless. A trembling I could not stop filled my body, and fear without reason caught my heart.” The narrator tells the reader that he begins to feel the same effects of the disease as Roderick. While this makes sense, because he had been spending lots of time with Roderick daily, I personally don’t think the narrator was experiencing the disease for himself. The story says, “The great door to which he was pointing now slowly opened. It was the work of the rushing wind, perhaps — but no — outside that door a shape did stand, the tall figure, in its grave-clothes, of the lady Madeline of Usher.” The narrator did say that he was hearing the same noises as the book was describing. While he thought he was going crazy, he actually was hearing those noises. Roderick and the narrator buried Lady Madeline alive, and the noises he heard was her trying to escape the vault which she laid in. Maybe he truly was going crazy, but from a birds-eye view, I think he was just spooked.
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you used great evidence
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I liked how you put what the definition of psychoanalysis and related it to what Rodrick Usher had.
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You have done a very good job of relating evidence to Roderick,s illness and how he is constantly in a state of fear.
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I like how well you describe psychoanalytic perspective on the text
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I like how you explained what Psychoanalysis was!
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you did a great job at explaining what psychoanalysis is!
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You did a great job supporting your evidence.
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Excellently worded! Evidence was amazing and it helped take a new path towards psychoanalysis for this story!
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i like how you related the definition to the literary Theory to what Usher had!
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you explained the meaning of psychoanalytic very well.
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excellent I loved the evidence!!
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you explained psychoanalysis really well
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The literary theme I chose was feminist for the story “To Be Taken By a Grain of Salt”.In the story there is a lack of women and many of the characters was men. The first character that I noticed was a man is the person that was murdered.A quotation to prove this is,”The murdered man had seemed to have a cut through his neck.”Also in the story the main character is a man.He is also asked to do the jury were the person next to him is a man.Quotation to prove this is,”I touched the brother jury man whose place was next to me,and I whispered to him,”oblige me by counting us.”These quotes prove that the main character and the jury man are both men. The last example I am going to give is that the person who had murdered the man is also a man him self.Quotations to prove this is,”The murderer began asked by the judge,according to usage,weather he had anything to say before the sentence of death should be passed upon him.”These quotes prove that the person murdered was also a man. The more I had read the story “To Be Taken By a Grain of Salt”the more i had noticed that there were many men. There is a whole lot more men than women in this story.In a feminist perspective I believe that there should have been an equal amount of men and women in this story.
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I love how you used evidence to show that the characters were men. I really enjoyed reading your blog! Great Job 🙂
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Your reasoning was very easy to understand, however I had a hard time fluently reading your blog because of the grammar mistakes. 😦
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When I had first read “To be Taken With a Grain of Salt”, I had realized that there were loads of men, and not many women. But I didn’t think much of it, until I studied the feminist’s perspective. It stuck out to me how many more men there were than women, than it seemed there were before. Feminism means there should be equal rights for both genders.
To begin with, the person who is telling the story, is a man himself. And when he is asked to do jury, the person standing next to him is a man. A quote to prove this is, “I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘Oblige me by counting us.’’ This is showing that he and one of the people in the jury with him, were males.
I had realized the person who had gotten murdered, was a man. A piece of evidence to prove this is, “The murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” This says the victim was a man, showing that one of the characters were male, instead of female.
Lastly, the murderer of the man, is a man as well. To prove this, the text says, “The Murderer being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him,” This shows the murderer is a man, because he goes by the pronouns “he/him”.
In a feminist perspective, I think there should have been more women added to the story, to equal out the total of men and women. Because there are quite a bit of men, and not very many women.
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I like how you defined feminism in the beginning so we know your definition on feminism. And how you told how you felt while reading.
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I like how you used evidence to get you point across. Good job!
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I Love how you first explained what you thought of both genders and the how you tied that into your definition of feminism. Your thoughts and feelings that were included to help understand what’s was going through your mind while reading was very helpful to bring it all together!
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I really like how you explained the feminism perspective in the first part and i also liked how you explained your evidence.
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I really liked your evidence and how you defined feminism in the beginning.
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I really liked how you went detail by detail and explain each man from the story and with the definition and evidence, it made a very good argument.
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I like how you added that even the murder was a man
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I love the way you explained everything you thought in detail, as if we were right there beside you as you were reading it. Well done.
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I love how you explained feminist in the beginning so we know what it is.
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I love this! I haven’t read this story yet, but the way you worded this made me feel like I have. Great job!
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This is a prime example of lack of feminism during the time the story was written. It truly shows how dominant males were and still are. Excellent job!
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i like how you included the definition of feminism and how you told what you thought about the story have a lot more man then woman.
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When reading “To be taken with a grain of salt”, I had noticed that only one or two women barely mentioned in the whole text, and all the main characters were men and most of the supporting characters were also. This led me to conclude that this text was written from a Feminist perspective. “Women are oppressed by patriarchy economically, politically, socially, and psychologically; patriarchal ideology is the primary means by which women are oppressed”, This is one approach of Tyson (92) from Purdue Owl web page. So to be taken from this approach is feminism is when women are oppressed from the same rights, credit, and views to the subject matter. First the main character of the story was a man. I know this because he states, “ I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment.” A bachelor is a man who has never been married. Also his fellow juryman was a man. I know this because the text states,”I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘Oblige me by counting us.’ He looked surprised by the request, but turned his head and counted.” this proves he was male where he could’ve been female. Finally the Murderer and the murdered were also men. The text states, “ I must not omit, as a matter of fact, that I never once saw the Appearance which I call by the name of the murdered man…The Murderer being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him…” this evidence shows that both the murdered and the murder wer male. Most all the main and supporting characters were man not women leading us to believe that this text is from a feminist perspective. ~ Makenah McKenney
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I like how you describe at the beginning of the story how women aren’t really in the story.
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Though there were many who claimed that, ” To be taken with a grain of salt,” had a feminist side. You had very well explained your argument and I felt like there was more of a understanding.
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you explained the feminist perspective really good
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I like how you explained the feminist perspective in the beginning
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Your feminist perspective was explained great!
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i like that you expand how woman weren’t in the story much, and i like how you expand feminism.
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To be taken with a grain of salt can be looked at through psychoanalytic criticism in saying that the fear of him seeing the ghost could be fueling or motivating him to make the decision of either the guy was guilty or not. Sigmund Freud’s theories states,”…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” In the story to be taken with a grain of salt it states,” While I was speaking to him I saw it open, and a man look in, who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was of the colour of impure wax.” In this part of the text the main character has obviously seen a ghost. Seeing a ghost isn’t just a thing you do everyday, so referring back to the psychoanalytic criticism this man could eventually make his decision based off of fear that he is unaware he has.
Another way to analyze this story is kind of the same as the last, but in different ways. Many times throughout the story other characters have touched the main character and been scared or thought they had seen the same ghost the main character saw. In the text it states,”When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr Harker’s bed was drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr Harker sitting on his bed, I went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. As Mr Harker’s hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a peculiar shiver crossed him, and he said: ‘Who is this!” In this excerpt the guard is the one who had seen the ghost and got scared. I think that this is part of what made the main character have a certain fear in him about the situation.
Last, We can analyze this story psychoanalytically again by saying that the fear that I think is present could change the theme into a theme about how fear can change peoples minds whether it is for the better or for the worse.
A refutation to my second analyzation is that someone could say that when he touches the other characters it is just a coincidence that they see the ghost and the main character would think that they are crazy.
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I like how you explained that the story had psychoanalytic criticism and how you tied it to why he might have trouble deciding whether the guy was guilty or innocent.
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Great evidence and reasoning. Great work
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Blog post two- When reading “The Fall of the House of Usher,” I thought of it more as a creepy and eerie story. When I was studying, I realized that the story could be psychoanalysis criticized. Roderick Usher is a frightened, fearful, and anxious character and suffers from a disease of the mind which makes him hypersensitive to light, taste, sound, and sensations. In the research, he states, “Based on this work, Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious:” …the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” ( Tyson 14-15) shown that your unconscious has the ability to cause emotions such as fear.” Part one of “The Fall of the House of Usher” says, “He suffered much from a sickly increase in the feeling of all the senses; he could only eat the most tasteless food; all the flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds which did not fill him with horror. This quote shows the constant state of fear he is in which explains why “The Fall of the House of Usher” is the perfect candidate for psychoanalysis.
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I liked your evidence, good job.
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I like how you stated his state of horror throughout the story makes it relevant to the perspective you used
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I think you efficiently applied your evidence!
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I liked how you used your evidence to explain you point
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In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, there were more men than women in the story. There were 4 characters mentioned throughout the story, and 3 of them were men. The 2 main characters in the story were men. One piece of evidence from the story “Fall of the House of Usher” is, ” Its owner was named Roderick Usher. We had been friends when we were boys.” This shows that both the main character and his friend were men. There were also 2 servants at the house of Usher, one of which was male. Two pieces of evidence from “The Fall of the House of Usher” is, “A man who worked in the house — a servant — took my horse.” and, ” the lady Madeline” This shows that 3 of the 4 characters in the story were men. In a feminist perspective, there should be more women.
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This is a good interpretation of the story through this perspective, good job!
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“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a great story to be psychoanalytically criticized because of the heavy themes centered around fear. The story focuses on Roderick Usher, the last of the family line of Usher, who has become ill. “The Fall of the House of Usher” states, “It was an illness, he said, from which he would surely die. He called his sickness fear.” Over time this sickness of the mind takes control of Roderick his fears of him dying and the family line dying with him until the climax when “He too was dead, killed by his own fear.” He is finally overtaken by his fears. Frued states “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…’ (Tyson 14-15).” The belief that emotions control people’s lives is shown in “The Fall of the House of Usher” because of how Roderick lives the rest of his days only appealing to the needs of his fear, such as not playing songs he loves because of the pain they cause him,and eventually his own emotions, fear, is enough to end his life as well. All of roderick’s emotions rule over his life, if he had simply overcome his childish fears he would have lived and many of his fears such as dying and ending the family tree would not have come to pass. As a result of this, the story is a perfect example of how the statement that we are motivated by our fears and emotions is in fact true.- Aiden Palmer
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I think you used really good at evidence to support your theory.
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You used really great text evidence.
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you really supported the theory that you chose, good job you did really well.
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I think you explained how it can be analyzed this way well and used good evidence to support it, good job.
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The literary theme I used was “To Be Taken a Grain of Salt” and realized that it had plenty of men characters and only a couple of women characters. This led me to believe that it was a feminist perspective. How I know that this passage’s intention was based of a feminist’s perspective because in the passage it states, “Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener’s internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at.” Another cite is, “I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East.” “The man who served it had taken the matter very coolly.” These citations that I pulled from the passages include a male. Chris Pratt once said, “I feel that in this world that men have more of a role in our society than women do. A lot of men feel that they are more powerful than women, which we aren’t more ‘powerful’ than one another, we should be equal.” Also, the main character in the passage is a male. Lastly, most of the main supporting characters are also male, leading us to believe that this passage is based off of a feminists perspective.–Destinee Howe
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Feminism is more than examining the ratio between male and female characters. Go back to the resource and take a look at the essential questions associated with feminism.
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When reading “The Fall of the House of Usher”, one could apply the psychoanalytic theory because of the themes centered around fear. In the story they introduce Roderick Usher as a character who was controlled by his many fears. The story stated,” I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy : FEAR!” Throughout the story we can see how his fear of his family line ending has effected him. The text also stated,” It was an illness, he said, from which he would surely die. He called his illness fear.” These two quotes support the belief of Tyson’s which stated,” …the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…'(Tyson 14-15).” This belief is proven to be shown throughout the story due to the fact that he was so consumed in his fears that it even affected his health.
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I really liked your examples!! Good job
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The text “Fall of the House of Usher”, is effectively interpreted by psychoanalytic criticism. This is because the character is filled with unexplainable fears. In the story it says, “ I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result — of terror! I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: fear!” This quote shows that Usher is driven by an immeasurable amount of fear. Freud suggests, “the notion that human beings are motivated, event driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15). This shows that your unconscious mind can “create” emotions such as fear, anger, etc…
The text also states “ It was, he said, a family sickness, and one from which he could not hope to grow better — but it was, he added at once, only a nervous illness…” Freud believed “our unconscious was influenced by childhood events. Freud organized these events into developmental stages involving relationships with parents….” Usher only knew fear because that was all he saw from his family during his childhood, so this shows that his relationship with his family caused this illness.
Finally, the text states “ It lay deep below that part of the building where I myself slept… For that reason the understanding between them had always been great, and the tie that held them together very strong. We looked down at the dead face one last time, and I was filled with wonder. As she lay there, the lady Madeline looked not dead but asleep — still soft and warm” Freud argued; “To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious, that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.” This shows that Usher could have convinced himself that his sister was dead so he would not have to see her the way she was anymore.
My second argument discusses how Usher got the disease because that is all he saw from his parents but you could also say that the disease was genetically passed down from offspring to offspring. Research from: https://psychology.jrank.org/pages/450/Neurosis.html states “In 1996, a specific human gene and its corresponding alleles (two components of a gene which are responsible for encoding the gene) were linked to neuroticism.” This shows that a human gene can cause this disease, which means that it can be passed down genetically from family member to family member.- Audrey Shelton
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i like how you included the point about his childhood!
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You had great examples!! Good Job!!
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i did not think about unexplainable fears but that is a very good one
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I like how you went into great detail about Freud’s research. Great job.
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The short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” could potentially be psychoanalytically criticized. The character Rodrick Usher suffers from a mental illness and is hypersensitive to taste, sight, smell, sound, and touch. All of which are the common senses we use in our everyday life. Rodrick Usher is no ordinary person. Fear and anxiety fill him with a horrific terror like no other. In the text it states, “I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.” This shows that Roderick Usher feels as if he will always be in the ascendency of fear and an uncontrollable terror and anxiety. In the studies by Sigmund Freud it says, “Based on this work, Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15).” According to Freud’s studies, unconsciousness has the capability to produce emotions such as fear. This being said, you can conquer that Roderick Usher is being influenced by fear in his present state of mind. The short story also states, “Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” In this time during the story, Roderick Usher is explaining that he still can see his twin sister, Madeline, and seeing her brings attention to the study that while unconscious, your mind can bring back past experiences. Roderick could’ve very much felt guilt for his sisters death and seeing her again brought more anxiety and fear to his life. Finally, the studies of Sigmund Freud says, “These stages reflect base levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss (loss of genitals, loss of affection from parents, loss of life) and repression: “…the expunging from consciousness of these unhappy psychological events” (Tyson 15).” This just goes to show that the psychological fear and terror that Roderick Usher was feeling could’ve been caused by the loss of his sister, Madeline. All of these prove that “The Fall of the House of Usher” could be psychoanalytically criticized.
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I really like how you explained how Rodrick Usher is different then everyone else. Nice work!!!
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I like how you went into deep detail on everything good job!
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Maddi Hudson Blog 2 – When I was reading “To be Taken With a Grain of Salt”, I didn’t realize that most characters were men, and only a few women. I didn’t think too much of it, until I learned more on the feminist’s perspective. As I read “To be Taken With a Grain of Salt” again, the fact that there were more males than females. The meaning of feminism means equal rights for both genders; male and female.The narrator or the person telling the story, is a man. When he asked to be on the jury, the person standing next to him was a man imagine that. “I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘Oblige me by counting us.’” This quote was explaining that the people on the jury were men not women. Again the person that got murdered, was a man. “The murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” This shows that another character was a male anain, not a female. showing that one of the characters were male, instead of female. The text states in “To be Taken With a Grain of Salt”, “The Murderer being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him.” Which means hit was a male, because the text used the pronoun “him” not “her”. If the perspectives were flipped and feminism had taken place there would have been a lot more females in the story instead of males. I believe if more females were incorporated there would be an equal amount of each gender.
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The short story,”To be taken with a grain of salt,” could be looked at from a Psychoanalytic approach , I say this because Sigmund Freud did many studies and in he work Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” and if you use this and read this story you could see that the main character was very startled at first when he saw the room that they had found the body in, in his own mind. Therefore you could very easily conclude that he was unconsciously very frightened for what was about to unfold. And while the full definition of Psychoanalytic Perspective is the importance of the unconscious mind and how your past experiences dictate your present behaviors there is not a lot of childhood or prior experiences by the narrator so to fill in the gap i just used what i could see that was in the text. Not only could you use this analysis on the narrator but on everyone of the characters mentioned.
So by using this theory one could argue that one the narrator was very frightened about the whole thing and being able to see the murdered man. It says in this story,” I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a dram, and was glad to take one myself.”It also states,”I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight, I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John Derrick’s coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand.” These two quotes help show that the narrator was so on edge and frightened that he one was drove to drinking to calm down and could not sleep through the night and everyone knows when you cant sleep something heavy musty be on your mind. so by using this unease it might have subconsciously drove the narrator to figure out who killed the man in his mind and make him guilty.
In another way you could see this approach is by the murdered man himself. He was killed and from the sounds of it a very gruesome death so his body may not have been connected to his subconscious but his memories and feelings were all still with him in the story. Meaning he may not even have consciously know what he was doing or why but he and the Narrator knew he held the truth and key to knowing the truth. Even though this is obviously fiction and someone who was killed couldn’t actually haunt someone to get the killer convicted but still.
One other way you could use this approach is by using it on the murderer on trial. He was very calm and collected the whole first day until the narrator was called to the box and then immediately begin to panic and erupt in fear at the mere sight of one person. He knew that he was caught now because the killer stared into the eyes of the narrator days before the trail. He knew that the narrator was gonna seal his life. This is the only one that could be proved wrong because he knew exactly what was going on and what he was doing in all ways .
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Great Job i could see how much effort you put into this
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I agree with Daniel, your effort was spectacular. I also like your quotes
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The text The Fall of The House of Usher is an example of a text that could be psychoanalytically criticized. In the story it talks about Roderick Usher’s mental illness in which he is very sensitive to light, sound and smells. On page 25 in The Fall of the House of Usher it says,“He suffered much from a sickly increase in the feeling of all the senses; he could eat only the most tasteless food; all flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds which did not fill him with horror.” “Based on this work, Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15).” After reading this theory, one could argue that Roderick Usher lets his thoughts control him by allowing himself to believe that they are the truth. The narrator of the story also begins to suffer from the same illness as Roderick Usher. “My mind fought against the nervousness. I tried to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt was due to the gloomy room, to the dark wall coverings, which in a rising wind moved on the walls. But my efforts were useless.” Because the narrator witnessed Usher’s fears first hand, he began to suffer from the same illness and fears as Usher.
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I like how you, put how both Roderick and the narrator was affected.
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love how you put the affection of the author.
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The use of Psychoanalytical criticism was often used in,” The Fall of the House of Usher.” The meaning of Psychoanalytic through research meant The theory of personality developed by Freud that focuses on repression and unconscious forces and includes the concepts of infantile sexuality, resistance, transference, and division of the psyche into the id, ego, and superego or (according to the required web page),” The notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware.” In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” it says,” There was a coldness, a sickening of the heart, in which I could discover nothing to lighten the weight I felt. What was it, I asked myself, what was it that was so fearful, so frightening in my view of the House of Usher.” To compare to the psychoanalytical meaning earlier mentioned, this piece of evidence shows that he had feared the House of Usher and was very unaware of how to approach his frightening situations that had ached within him. The text also mentioned,”He called his sickness fear. ‘ I have,’ he said,’ no fear of pain, but only the fear of it’s result… Of terror.” Though he feared, he had a very unusual fear that wasn’t exactly expected because of it’s difference. However, Freud’s definition easily explains his situation of his fear and sickening illness of terror. Lastly,”The Fall of the House of Usher,” says,” I learned also, but slowly, and through broken words with doubtful meaning, another strange fact about the condition of Usher’s mind.He had certain sick fears about the house in which he lived, and he had not stepped out of it for many years. He felt that the house, with its gray walls and the quiet lake around it, had somehow through the long years gotten a strong hold on his spirit.” Though others may seem to see this as an irrelevant point, through the Psychoanalytic definition by Freud’s words, this can easily be proven others wrong. With this quote Usher had become mentally unstable as someone (through research) would have unconscious actions by not fully acknowledging the mental condition he is in. Though he knows the basic fact that he has an illness, he is not exactly mentally stable with him having sick fears of home, in which he hasn’t stepped out of his home for many years. This concludes evidence on the Psychoanalytic shown through,” The Fall of the House of Usher.”
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I really like how you put the definition of Psychoanalytic in your text
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When I first read “To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt” I didn’t realize the story behind the story, and why it was written. Charles Dickens wrote and published this story in the late 1800s while encountering some very interesting things. “To be Taken with a Grain of Salt” wasn’t the original name that Dickens had given the short story, he published the murder mystery by the title “The Trial for Murder”.
I chose the postcolonial theory because of the backstory of the book and the storyline of the book related to the description of postcolonial. The postcolonial theory is a body of thought primarily concerned with accounting for the political, aesthetic, economic, historical, and social impact of European colonial rule around the world in the 18th through the 20th century. Dickens lived in London, England his whole life, and wrote hundreds of books including the famous and most commonly known “A Christmas Carol”, and others like, “David Copperfield”, “A Tale of Two Cities”, and “Our Mutual Friend”. Coming from Bartleby.com it says, “Charles Dickens stories could be said to be a reflection of his childhood because of the intensity in which he writes about the subject. Dickens was fascinated with the supernatural and attended many séances. A reoccurring theme within Dickens writing is that of the supernatural such as ghost stories.” This quote shows that Dickens had a reason for every story that he wrote. That every story related to something that happened when Dickens was a child.
During the 18th century, Great Britain was colonizing all over Europe, Asia, and Africa, just like they did 100 years earlier in America. Queen Victoria at the time wanted all of the lands under her rule, so she could have all power. Dickens, on the other hand, didn’t know how to handle all of this because he dearly loved his home country and the people adored him and his stories, but he wasn’t a big fan of the complete raid over the country and wondered what effect it would have on the people. One thing that Dickens wrote in the short story that connected a huge line of things together is, “We hear more than enough of Murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this particular brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail.” This one little piece of information could help you see the smallest interesting facts of all. When it says “if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate Jail” he is referencing to the same jail that his father was held because of the lack of money he could provide for his family. When Dickens father was taken to jail he was pulled out of school so he could go make money for his very struggling family. I wonder if Dickens saw the downfall of the country he knew and loved in all of the widespread colonization. A piece of information that comes from Thevintagenews.com says, “Charles Dickens was the greatest and the most prolific English writer of the Victorian era. His novels and short stories are known for their social criticism, and their popularity is still on the rise today. While writing his final novel Our Mutual Friend, which is widely regarded as his most sophisticated work, Dickens survived a horrible railroad accident.” This piece of information is very important because this train wreck happened the same year the “The Trial for Murder” was published. The story “OurMutual Friend” can relate to the thought going through Dickens’ head at the time because he didn’t know whom the Queen was pulling into society. He had no idea who they were or where they were from so he wrote the book “Our Mutual Friend” to write his feelings on what was happening at that time. This spirals back to the postcolonial theory in “To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt” because the events that happened all relate to the storyline and why Dickens even wrote the story in the first place. Dickens intailed wrote the story “To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt” because it showed the story of his life written as a fictional man going through similar things that he went through as a child. The man in the story represented one of the men in Dickens’ past life, and everything the man in the story went through had happened many years earlier in a variety of many ways. The postcolonial theory had impacted Dickens’ life in many ways unexpectedly because he lived in the Victorian era and wrote books and such for a living, but the Queen’s actions impacted how he wrote his books the way he did. He didn’t just write “A Christmas Carol” for fun, he had encountered such things as a child, almost like seeing ghosts in his sleep. Dickens’ just very might have seen a ghost of a deceased being as a child. Now when I reread “To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt” I wonder, what was going through Dickens’ head when he wrote his stories, and what he wants us to get out of his stories.-Anna Wills
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Your argument is really good. You had a very different argument than others and I could tell that you put a lot of time and effort into it.
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Your text was different from the others and i really like how you didnt just do what everyone else was doing.
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I agree with Brooke. I like that you did postcolonial which is different compared to every one doing psychoanalytic or feminism
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I like how you did a different method than everyone else, you did a good job explaining as well.
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i like how you really included the meaning of psychoanalysis
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When reading “To be Taken With a Grain of Salt”, for the first time, I noticed that there were not a lot of women and a lot of men, so I chose to interpret this as feminism. Feminism is having equal rights for both men and women.
First of all, the person who was murdered was a man. The passage says, “The murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” This shows that the person who was murdered was a man and not a woman. The murderer was also a man. A quote from the passage is, ” The murderer begin asked by the judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before the sentence of death should be passed upon him.” This shows that he is a man because it uses pronouns such as he and him. If it had used pronouns such as her and she, it would be saying that the person is a woman. Also, the main character is a man and the person standing next to him in the jury was a man. The passage says, ” I touched the brother juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘ Oblige me by counting us’.” This quote shows that he is a man because it said, brother and him.
I believe in a feminist perspective there should be more women and not as many men and if the author included more women in the story the amount of each gender would be equal.
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When I read “The Fall of The House of Usher” through a psychoanalytic perspective there was a whole other side to the story. Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory that is aimed to treat mental disorders by bringing the unconscious thoughts of the mind (desires, needs. Conflicts, fears and others) to light. By doing this we can see that our thoughts are just thoughts and they shouldn’t control our decisions. Roderick Usher suffers from a mental disorder which causes him to have hypersensitivity. In the text”The Fall of the House ofUsher” says “He suffered from a sickly increase in the feelings of all his senses; he could eat only the most tasteless food; all flowers smelled to strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds that did not fill him with horror. A certain kind of sick fear was completely his master.” In the last part of the quote it says a certain kind of sick where fear is his master.Meaning he constantly has fear. In Sigmund Freud research it says” Based on this work, Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: “…the notion that human beings are motivated, event driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15). This shows that your unconscious has the ability to create fear so Roderick Usher is perfect for this.“I shall die,” he said. “I shall die! I must die of this fool’s sickness. In this way, this way and no other way, I shall be lost. I fear what will happen in the future, not for what happens, but for the result of what happens. I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result — of terror! I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: FEAR!” This quote shows Rodericks fear for what is to come such as the future. This helps the reader kinda get an understanding of what Roderick was fearing and most of the fear was in his head. In Freud’s research he created stages in which reflect base levels of desire, but they also involve fear of loss (loss of genitals, loss of affection from parents, loss of life) and repression: “…the expunging from consciousness of these unhappy psychological events” (Tyson 15). This comes to show that some of Rodericks fear came from the fear of loss of his sister and this helps to build to his anxiety.In the final art of Freud’s research it is said “Tyson reminds us, however, that “…repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions…we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’…our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress” (15). “ As it says in the story the Usher had a twin sister that ended up dying at the end of the story. But when this happened the Usher most likely repressed some of his emotions. It says in the story,” The worldly reason he gave for this was one with which I felt I had to agree. He had decided to do this because of the nature of her illness, because of the strange interest and questions of her doctors, and because of the great distance to the graveyard… “It says he moved her to the vault because of the nature of her illness. But maybe it wasn’t her illness or maybe it was something about her illness he was fearing. With this in mind maybe Roderick Had something to do with this illness and he wants to lock it away in the vault. So therefore on the emotions he is repressing could be guilt of his sisters loss.So now you can see another side to Roderick. These are the ways that the story “The Fall ofthe House of Ushers” is a good store to look through a psychoanalytic criticism perspective on.
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Emily Palmer- When first reading “To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt” i’ve regarded the fact that there were more men than women in this story. The main characters and the supporting chacter were all men this is leading me to think that this is from a feminist perspective. The main characters and supporting characters are all men i know this because the passage states “ I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment.” this shows the main character is a male because it says bachelor and bachelor means a man who has not been married this supports why its from a feminist perspective because its all about the men in this story and that there are very few women. Today males hold in there feelings of pain,loneliness and sorrow because thats the real world expectation for them. “To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt” has the same expectation i know this because in the passage it states “Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener’s internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at” this shows that this is from a feminist perspective because it should mean that all people men and women are created equal but from this evidence it shows men have to keep all there feeling in while its normal for a woman to express how she feels without getting laughed at. almost all of the characters in this story were male and had male expectations which is why its a feminist perspective.
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Blog 2- The story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is an example of psychoanalytic criticism because Fredrick Usher used his fear to completely control his decisions. Psychoanalytic Criticism is a psychological theory that is hoped to treat mental disorders by bringing the unintentional thoughts of ones mind (desires, fears, needs, conflicts, etc) to light. “I have,” he said, “no fear of pain, but only the fear of its result — of terror. I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: FEAR!” This shows that his fear is taking over his life kind of like a battle. From Sigmund Freud’s studies, it says, “Freud began his psychoanalytic work in the 1880s while attempting to treat behavioral disorders in his Viennese patients. He dubbed the disorders ‘hysteria’ and began treating them by listening to his patients talk through their problems. Based on this work, Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15).” This evidence proves that Fredrick Usher is using Psychoanalytic criticism because he’s unaware of the fear taking over his mind. Another piece of evidence from “The Fall of the House of Usher” is, “The trembling in his voice seemed to show the greatest fear. At times he sat looking at nothing for hours, as if listening to some sound I could not hear.” This evidence shows that his fear is now affecting others, and is taking over their lives too.
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When I had read “To be Taken With a Grain of Salt”, there were many man and only a couple woman. I didn’t realize how many more men there were than woman until I looked at the feminist’s perspective. There should be equality between men and woman. Many of the main characters and others were all men, knowing there was more I realized the text was written from a Feminist perspective. The person that told the story was a man, the two people standing right next to each other were both men. A piece of evidence to support this is, “ I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘Oblige me by counting us.” This showed that they were male and not female. The main character of the story was a male. I can prove this because he stated, “I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment.” A bachelor is a man who is not yet married. Third of all, the person who was murdered was a man. Evidence to prove this is “The murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” This shows the murdered person was a man and not a woman. The murderer was to a man. Evidence to prove this is, “The murderer begin asked by the judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before the sentence of death should be passed upon him.” This shows that he is a man because they used pronouns he and him. If the murderer was a woman they would have used her and she.
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“To Be Taken With A Grain of Salt” can be interpreted through the psychoanalytic theory. I believe that the narrator, seeing the phantom of the murdered man, influenced his decision in court. Sigmund Freuds theories says “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…”. In the story, it states “… a man look in, who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man was the man who had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and whose face was the color of the impure wax.” If it was me, I would certainly be scared be scared if I saw that, so the narrator was most likely scared too. Back to the psychoanalytic theory, the fear of seeing the phantom made him unconsciously make his decisions based on fear.
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When reading, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, I quickly realized that there was more to this text then what I originally thought. From studying up on psychoanalytic, (which is related to psychoanalysis; “psychoanalysis is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques related to the study of the unconscious mind…”) To help you understand more, Purdue Universitys’ article on Psychoanalytic Criticism says, “ Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: ‘…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…’ (Tyson 14-15)” All though the text, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, you can see that Roderick Usher, the main character, is nervous and very fearful. The text says, “ ‘…I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result — of terror! I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: fear!’ ” By the end of the text, you learn that Roderick Usher and the narrator buried Lady Madeline alive. If you go back to what Freud has said about people’s behavior is affected by their unconsciousness, which can be driven by fear. You can see that Roderick, suffering from some sort of mental disorder, was driven by his fear and unaware of what he was doing, buried Lady Madeline alive. The narrator, who in the beginning seemed perfectly fine, started experiencing the same things Roderick was. When the narrator first saw and enter the house he described it as being overrun by sadness and had a hint of death to it. Maybe the narrator, as he stayed in the house, became fearful of it and that’s the reason he started experiencing what Roderick was experiencing, or maybe it was because he could hear Lady Madeline trying to escape and he thought he was going crazy. The fact is, that the story, “The Fall of The House of Usher” has a psychoanalytic perspective. Which caused Roderick and the narrator to be unaware of what they were doing because their unconsciousness was driven by fear.
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I like the evidence you used and how you explained your response. Great job!
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“The fall of the house of usher” can be interpreted through a psychoanalytic perspective. The psychoanalytic perspective is based on the theory that peoples behavior is affected by the unconscious mind. That humans are motivated by fears, desires, needs, conflicts, and conflicts of conflicts they are which unaware of. The character Roderick Usher is based on fear. In the passage “The fall of the house of usher” it says, “I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result — of terror!” This detail shows that Roderick Usher has fear and his life is controlled by fear. He is scared of the results of fear. The Article, https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/subject_specific_writing/writing_in_literature/literary_theory_and_schools_of_criticism/index.html says “The notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15). This detail helps show that Roderick Usher can be motivated or driven by his fears.
One of the psychoanalytic themes is the madness shown throughout the story. “The
fall of the house of usher” says, “Yes!” he said. “I heard it! Many minutes, many hours, many days have I heard it — but I did not dare to speak! We have put her living in the vault!” This quote shows this could be from the madness or that Madeline is just a manifestation of Roderick’s fear. A quote from the website is “Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.” The quote shows that could be that his fear could have been a fear of death among others and it could have been just a manifestation of that fear.
The narrator towards the end of the story is almost as fearful and paranoid as Roderick is in. “ The fall of the house of Usher” says “I rushed from the room; I rushed from the house…for only the great house and its darkness were behind me.” This detail shows that the narrator was fearful at the end he thought the darkness from the house was behind him.
All these examples are from the psychoanalytic perspective.
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“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a great story to be psychoanalytically criticized. Psychoanalytic Criticism is the idea that our unconscious affects our behavior. To begin with Roderick Usher has some strange ailments that make him a great choice for psychoanalytic criticism,” He suffered much from a sickly increase in the feeling of all the senses; he could eat only the most tasteless food; all flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds which did not fill him with horror.” This isn’t what would happen if you just got sick. As Tyson reminded us,”…repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions…we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’…our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress,” and Freud argued,”To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious,we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.” This could show why Roderick Usher was so sensitive to certain things, he had repressed something so far down and as a defense he made himself,without knowing it, sensitive to light and smell among other things. Or he could have just had some crazy illness that made him crazy like schizophrenia. Another thing about Roderick Usher is his possession of his sister so that he could have a relationship like that of his mother and father. ”He said, however, that much of the gloom which lay so heavily on him was probably caused by something more plainly to be seen — by the long-continued illness — indeed, the coming death — of a dearly loved sister,” although this doesn’t say anything specifically, it can hint at the relationship between Roderick and his sister. What Freud said about this,”..the boy learns to identify with the father in the hope of someday possessing a woman like his mother.” This also helps prove the hidden truth about the relationship because Roderick sister’s would be and look like her mom since she was her daughter. And finally why Roderick didn’t just die from the deathly deathly illness he had,” He appeared not like a human being, but like a spirit that had come back from beyond the grave. It was an illness, he said, from which he would surely die.” This says that even the author thought that Roderick was going to die from the disease, but he didn’t. One thing that may have let him live longer was his unconscious,as Freud asserted,”the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” This shows that even though he was sick, his unconscious was able to prevail against the sickness. This could also show mind over matter.
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I really liked your evidence and how you explained it great job
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While reading “The Fall of the House of Usher” I decided that the story could be interpreted into a psychoanalytic method. “..the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…’ (Tyson 14-15).” This is the exact quote from Sigmund Freud’s research on his theories regarding psychology. On page 25 “The Fall of the House of Usher” states, “He suffered much from a sickly increase in the feeling of all the senses; he could eat only the most tasteless food; all flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light, and there were few sounds which did not fill him with horror. ” This correlates to the method of psychoanalytically because of Roderick Usher’s illness and fear that ultimately handicaps him and draws him further back from ordinary life experiences and activities. “I have,’ he said, ‘no fear of pain, but only the fear of its result — of terror. I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: fear!” This quote is also relevant to the psychoanalytic method because of how it refers to Roderick staying away from anything that would cause him to feel pain or get overstimulated, to subside the ending reaction of terror, which he is undoubtedly afraid of.
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I like the evidence you used and how you explained it. Great job!
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While reading “To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt” I quickly realized that there were very few women characters. For that reason I will be interpreting this text through a feminist perspective. Feminism is the belief that males and females should have equal rights. An example of how there were many more men than women is that the main character is a male. I know this because the title says, “By Charles Dickens.” The story is written in first person therefore Charles Dickens is the main character. This is the person who plays the biggest role in the story, so the story is mainly about a man which puts the readers already thinking that males are more important than women (the opposite of feminism). Another example of how there is more men than women is, “The direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. He appeared there.” This shows how the murderer is also a man. In this story the man is a very important character. If it would’ve been a woman the whole stories outlook would be different. Which again makes the reader assume that the men are more important than the women. The final way that men same more than women is this; “ The murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” This evidence shows that the person that was murdered was also a man. This means that most of the main characters are males. This makes the reader think that men are more important than women therefore meaning they should have better privileges than the women. But that is the exact opposite thing that feminist want.
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I agree that if a women had been a main character the story would have been from a different perspective and point of view. In Dicken’s time period men felt superior over women which is why he would use men in his stories.
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I really like how you used the title as your first example and said how the story was told in first person. Nice work!
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In the story “To be Taken with a Grain of Salt” I chose femenist for a literature theme.I choose this literature theme because it has an obvious difference between male and female characters in the story and it also shows a major time period when women didn’t do political jobs because most of the time they weren’t allowed or they chose not to because they had jobs that were labeled a “woman” job.To prove my answer about the obvious difference between male characters and female is in the passage it states “Now, I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure, until I touched him. The change in him was so startling when I touched him, that I fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from me at that instant.” Another piece of evidence is “The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury-box, on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes rested on me, with great attention; he seemed satisfied, and slowly shook a great grey veil, which he carried on his arm for the first time, over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict ‘Guilty’, the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty.The Murderer being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him, indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers of the following day as ‘a few rambling, incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial because the Foreman of the Jury was prepossessed against him’.”These pieces of evidence prove my answer because not only is the main character a male, the murderer,the servant and the person murdered was also male. One of a couple mentioning quotes I found of a woman was the quote “…my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment.” To prove my answer about there being no woman being on the jury because of the time period the passage states “happening to cast my eyes over my brother-jurymen…” This qoute proves my answer because as he looks around the jury he referrs to them as brothers meaning that all the jury members are male or he wouldve said something that refered toward women.A qoute from Feminist Critism it states” early 1960s-late 1970s: building on more equal working conditions necessary in America during World War II, movements such as the National Organization for Women (NOW), formed in 1966, cohere feminist political activism. Writers like Simone de Beauvoir (Le Deuxième Sexe, 1949) and Elaine Showalter established the groundwork for the dissemination of feminist theories dove-tailed with the American Civil Rights movement.” This shows that up till 1960 women didn’t get involved with political things because they couldn’t vote, couldn’t be in office or anything of that sort since the world was more in favor to men.
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I like your overview on how you connected your contextual evidence to your answer and your claim.
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An example of the literary theory of psychoanalytic criticism, is “The Fall of the House of Usher”. According to Freud, “people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: ‘…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…’ (Tyson 14-15).” Psychoanalytic criticism is the psychological concept that we are driven by the unconscious desires. This can be seen in “The Fall of the House of Usher” as his fear drives him throughout the story. It says in the text, “‘I shall die,” he said. ‘I shall die! I must die of this fool’s sickness. In this way, this way and no other way, I shall be lost. I fear what will happen in the future, not for what happens, but for the result of what happens. I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result — of terror! I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: FEAR!” Roderick Usher is driven by all of his fears throughout the story, ranging from anxiety to almost madness. He even talks about dying, already letting fear consume him. He is so driven by his unconscious fear, that it even gets a hold of his mind, making him seem crazy. To add on to this theory, it says, “Tyson reminds us, however, that ‘…repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions…we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’…our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress’ (15). To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.” As this can be represented in the text, “And now a change came in the sickness of my friend’s mind. He went from room to room with a hurried step. His face was, if possible, whiter and more ghastly than before, and the light in his eyes had gone. The trembling in his voice seemed to show the greatest fear. At times he sat looking at nothing for hours, as if listening to some sound I could not hear.” As Usher lets his fear control him, he does certain things that are being caused unconsciously by his fear. As he rushes, his face showing his constant fear, and even every time he talked it showed. Also, this drive of fear can be represented even in his relationships with others as the narrator is even beginning to develop his unnatural fear. As it says, “Sleep did not come — while the hours passed. My mind fought against the nervousness. I tried to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt was due to the gloomy room, to the dark wall coverings, which in a rising wind moved on the walls. But my efforts were useless. A trembling I could not stop filled my body, and fear without reason caught my heart.” After watching his friends constant nervousness, he too had begun to get caught in his unexplained fears. Being in the same house as him and installed fears that were unexplainable, losing sleep because of it. This proves that “The Fall of the House of Usher” brings out the literary theory of psychoanalytic criticism. Proving that fear had led Usher, the main focus of the story, into near madness, controlling his actions and thoughts without knowing, even drawing in the narrator to share these fears.
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I like the evidence you used and how you backed them up, great job!
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I agree with your connections to your theory and the story, and you did a great job backing them up. Good job 🙂
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The story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is an example of a text that could be psychoanalytically criticized. Psychoanalysis is the focus on the psychology of characters in a story and how they are affected by it. Roderick Usher is a character who is constantly anxious and fearful, with a mental illness that increases his senses such as taste, sight, smell, sound, and touch. This causes his life to be extremely different than a normal one. “The Fall of the House of Usher” states, “He suffered much from a sickly increase in the feeling of all the senses; he could only eat the most tasteless food; all the flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds which did not fill him with horror.” This quote explains some of his problems he had that were controlled by his fears. Because of his fears he was constantly worried and it caused all of his senses to increase because of how focused on everything he was from being so worried. The website states, “ Based on this work, Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15).” This quote shows that your fears can control you and how you act. This relates to the character Roderick Usher and shows how it can be psychoanalytically criticized because he was controlled by his fears, an example of this is him being overly aware about everything happening around him.
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I like your quotes. They support your position well.
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great explanations!
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While reading the ghost story ”Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe I noticed that men were put above women. I didn’t really think much of it, but while studying the feminist’s perspective I realized that there was a imbalance of equality between men and women. Feminism means there should be equality between both men and women. As in the story Rodrick’s sister Madeline had became ill, according to the story it states “The illness of the lady Madeline had long been beyond the help of her doctors” With this being said the inequality between men and women was that a lot of time women were diagnosed as being hysterical so they were overlooked. Also, in the text it states, “ The name had passed always from father to son, and when people spoke of the “House of Usher” they included both the family and the family home” This shows an imbalance of equality between men and women because women were not allowed to own property and that’s why the name of the house always passed from father to son. These two pieces of evidence supports that there was an imbalance between men and women because women were not taken serious and that’s why they were overlooked unlike men were taken and treated seriously. Also, there was an imbalance of equality between men and women because women were not allowed to own land as men were allowed to and men were associated with the house more than women.
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great explanation! loved the way you explained your evidence.
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The Fall of The house of usher is a good representation of the theory psychoanalysis. Rodrick Usher had a sickness of the mind… in his case this meant some severe anxiety and fear. in the fall of the house of usher it states ” i fear what will happen in the future, not for what happens, but for the result of what happens. i have indeed no fear of pain, but only fear of its result-of terror! i feel the time will soon arrive where i must lose my life, my mind, and my soul” this evidence shows Rodrick sickness is centered around fear/anxiety..that he is anxious about the future and what it holds to the point it is taking over his life. in a study about psychoanalysis it says “that human beings are motivated, even driven by desires, fear, needs, and conflicts, of which they are unaware” this is a quote from the founder of this theory, Sigmund Freud himself proving that fear in fact does motivate us kinda like Rodrick in the fall of the house of usher. The house of the fall of usher also states “he said however much of the gloom which lay so heavily on him was probably caused by something more plainly to be seen- by the long continued illness- indeed the coming death of a dearly loved sister” this quote makes a good point showing Rodrick’s anxiety and fear could have a lot to do with his sister being deathly ill. continuing on that in the same study i refereed to earlier it says ” Freud argued that we develop defenses; selective perception, selective memory,denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy,and fear of death,among others” this relates back to rod rick and my point i had before that he has a fear of death not for himself but for his sisters which could definitely be a trigger of his fear and anxiety. this all relates back to the theory psychoanalysis and proving that “the fall of the house of usher’ represents this theory.
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Fall of The house of Usher is a good representation of the theory psychoanalysis. Rodrick Usher had an illness in his head causing a lot of anxiety and fear. In theFall of The House of Usher a cite is, “He called his sickness fear. ‘I have.’ he said. ‘No fear of pain, but only the fear of its result, of terror.” This evidence explains that Roderick Usher’s illness is described as his fear. Not only does this illness cause this fear and anxiety, it becomes his real life. Another cite from the passage is, “I learned also, but slowly, and through broken words with doubtful meaning, another strange fact about the condition of Usher’s mind. He had certain sick fears about the house he lived in, and he had not stepped out of for many years. He felt that the house, with its gray walls and a quiet lake around it, had somehow through the long years gotten a strong hold of his spirit.” This cite from the passage explains that his illness made Usher believe that something had gotten ahold of his spirit giving him all this fear and anxiety he has while living in his house. A study shows that psychoanalysis is a treatment for the psychological disorder bringing fears into your mind by using techniques such as dream interpretation and free association. Proving that fear had led Usher which is the main point of the story, controlled his actions without him even knowing it was happening, it even brought in the narrator to show these fears and the anxiety Usher had.
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While reading “The Fall of the House of Usher,” it is easy to understand it from a psychoanalytic point of view. Psychoanalysis focuses on the theories of psychology in a story and how it affects the characters in it. The website states, “Freud asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: ‘The notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware.’” This quote shows that people’s actions and thoughts can be controlled by their fears and that is displayed in the story through Roderick Usher. The story says, “He suffered much from a sickly increase in the feeling of all senses; he could eat only the most tasteless foods; all flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds that did not fill him with horror. A certain kind of sick fear was completely his master.” This demonstrates how you can find psychoanalysis in the story. Roderick Usher was being controlled by his fears. He was affected by those fears so much that they heightened his senses to where hardly anything could give him pleasure. His illness that he claimed was passed down from his family was taking over his life and he had no one to help him through it until the narrator of the story got there. Usher’s senses were so sensitive that he could detect things happening from other parts of his house and that gave him more fears because of everything that he knew was happening. The problem he had eventually caused him to die from his own fears.
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After reading “To Be Taken With A Grain of Salt,” it was evident to me that Dickens was effected by psychoanalytic criticism. The Purdue University article states that psychoanalytic criticism is “…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…” (Tyson 14-15). The story shows that an “ordinary” citizen was reading about a murder in the newspaper and was taken to the scene of the crime through his own imagination. It says, “Though almost instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear; so clear that I distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of the dead body from the bed.” Dickens himself must be dealing with some emotional and/or psychological issues of his own to be able to portray a character who can see the dead. The next part of the story showed the same man in his bedroom talking with his servent. He was facing the only door of communication and the door was shut. “While I was speaking to him I saw it open, and a man looked in, who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me.” He turned to his servant who then said, “O Lord yes sir! A dead man beckoning!” This part of the text shows the character was effected by the murder story and intense fears which supports the theory of psychoanalytic criticism. Even today people are captured by the thought of being able to speak to the dead through medians or fortune tellers. This may just be a way to reach out to a loved one, but some believe they can see and even speak to those who have passed from this life. Finally, the story ends with the character being part of the murder trial for the news article he had read. The ghost who had visited him was in the court room as the ruling of “guilty” was read. Then he disappeared. A typical question asked when interpreting a story for psychoanalytic criticism is “Does the “hero” embark on a journey in either a physical or spiritual sense?” In this case the hero embarks on a physical journey to get justice for a man who had just been murdered.
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great evidence!
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An example of the literary theory of psychoanalytic criticism, is “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Studies by Sigmund Freud state, “people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: ‘…the notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware…’ (Tyson 14-15).” In other words, psychoanalytic criticism is a theory that argues that human behavior is driven by the unconscious desires. This is shown in “The Fall of the House of Usher” because Roderick Usher is an anxious and fearful character, and this drives his thoughts and behavior throughout the story. “I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result — of terror! I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: FEAR!” This quote shows how Roderick Usher’s mental state is affected by his fear. Roderick’s fear lead to lots of anxiety, which was represented in the above stated quote. He also mentions death, which can lead us to believe he often let his fear consume him entirely, also making him seem crazy. In addition, it also states, “Tyson reminds us, however, that ‘…repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions…we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’…our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress’ (15). To keep all of this conflict buried in our unconscious, Freud argued that we develop defenses: selective perception, selective memory, denial, displacement, projection, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death, among others.” This is shown in the story when it says, “And now a change came in the sickness of my friend’s mind. He went from room to room with a hurried step. His face was, if possible, whiter and more ghastly than before, and the light in his eyes had gone. The trembling in his voice seemed to show the greatest fear. At times he sat looking at nothing for hours, as if listening to some sound I could not hear.” This quote represents how Usher’s fear began to control his behavior, such as ‘going from room to room with a hurried step’ and ‘looking at nothing for hours, as if listening to something I could not hear’. This is all driven by an unconscious fear that he can’t control. Finally, this unconscious behavior can be found also in his relationships, as the narrator begins to develop his own fear-driven behaviors. The text states, “Sleep did not come — while the hours passed. My mind fought against the nervousness. I tried to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt was due to the gloomy room, to the dark wall coverings, which in a rising wind moved on the walls. But my efforts were useless. A trembling I could not stop filled my body, and fear without reason caught my heart.” The narrator spent so much time consumed with his friends anxieties, he began to develop his own fears that he couldn’t control. Therefore, “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a great example of psychoanalytic criticism, because of the fact that the main character’s unconscious fears drive his behaviors, and the narrator even develops his own.
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like the discription
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Blog Post Two:
When I read the website research and the “Fall of the House of the Usher”, I thought that it psychoanalytic. I felt like the story and the characters were creepy, fearful, and in pain. From the research website it says, “…Loss of life, or loss of affection from parents.” And I’m pretty sure that scares everyone, no one wants to feel rejected by a loved one, or at most lose a loved one. And that’s scary because it could happen at any given moment. And you would feel the pain if it does happen. From, “ Fall of the House of the Usher,” it says, “ …and now those who center the valley see through the windows, in a red light, shapes that move to broken music; while through the door, now colorless, a ghastly river of ghosts, laughing but no longer smiling, rushes out forever.” That’s fearful because the character describing the house, puts the words into a negative impact. And details it into a very creepy vibe. It helps the audience imagine the house, and that will put a scary picture in our heads, so that we can relate to the author’s feelings or story. It also says, “ Freud maintained that our desires and our unconscious conflicts give rise to three areas of the mind that wrestle for dominance as we grow from infancy, to childhood, to adulthood.” This also may give people anxious thoughts, because you will have to provide for yourself, instead of someone else taking care of you.
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When talking about seeing things through a literary theory lens, “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a great example to use when looking through the psychoanalytic theory. In this story Roderick Usher develops the two problems of fear and anxiety, and this seems to be caused by events that occurred during Roderick’s childhood. An example of this is, “ I was now going to spend several weeks in this house of sadness- this house of gloom. Its owner was named Roderick Usher….. He wrote of an illness of the body- of a sickness of the mind and of one desire to see me- his best and indeed his only friend… I really believed that around the whole house, and the ground around it, the air itself was different. It was not the air of heaven. It rose from the dead, decaying trees, from the gray walls, and the quiet lake. It was sickly, unhealthy air that I could see, slow-moving, heavy and gray.” This quote expresses that the house was full of gloom and sadness, the events that might have occurred in the house when Roderick was a child, could’ve affected the “sickness of the mind” that Roderick has now. In the quote it also states how this man, that is going to see Roderick, claims to be his only friend. This could bring great loneliness and sadness to Roderick, knowing that he doesn’t have many friends to help him or be with him from his childhood. Another quote is, “ He called his sickness fear. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘ no fear of pain, but only the fear of its result- terror. I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: FEAR!” This quote shows that he is in great fear, the fear is not of pain, but of fear itself, the fear is the pain. The sickness of Rodericks mind is fear, and this is due to everything that happened to Roderick during his childhood. Lastly, the story tells of the sickness and passing of Roderick’s sister Madeline. When laying her to rest, Roderick’s friend learns that Roderick and Madeline were twins quoting, “ they had been born on the same day. For that reason the understanding between them had always been great, and the tie that held them together very strong.” This indicates a very close relationship among the siblings, with great loss adding to the darkness– the sickness of mind.
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As an addendum to my original post I would like to cite evidence from Sigmund Freud’s “Psychoanalytic Criticism- The Unconscious, the desires, and the defenses.” We learn that childhood event unconsciously affect our behavior, as in the case of the fall of Usher passed events that Roderick experienced has contributed to his sickness of mind. Although Roderick may have tried to repress (which means expunged from consciousness of unhappy events) we see that, “ repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions… we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’…our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress.” Throughout the story we encounter lots of denial, displacement, regression, fear of intimacy, and fear of death.
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i agree with using the psychoanalytic theory like you did.
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good job on your evidence.
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When I first read “The fall of the house of usher”, I came to the conclusion that this story show’s psychoanalytic traits in it. In the beginning of this story it started to talk about this man who was heading to his childhood friends house. when he was heading down there he had noticed that his old friends house wasn’t how he remembered it at all. So when he finally went into his long lost buddy’s house he noticed something really different. But then again almost not recognized it at all. It turns out the house wasn’t the only thing that has changed a lot he barley even recognized his old childhood friend. his friend had an illness a family sickness he said. And when I studied about psychoanalysis I learned that its just a set of theories and therapeutic technics related to the study of the unconscious mind, witch together forms methods of treatments for mental health disorders. And the guy in this story seems to have this kind of illness. Anyways this story also shows that the guy who is sick is always nervous and scared which may be a cause with his illness that runs in the family anyways another way psychoanalytic traits connect with this story is because its the theory that goes along with the whole situation. which brings me to my conclusion that the story “The fall of the house of usher” does have psychoanalytic traits in it. Also I am fascinated with this story with a passion because it speaks all about a man with an illness but still try’s to help his sister.
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The theory I felt best fit “The Fall of the House of Usher” was Psychoanalytic Theory. In this story, one of the main characters expresses behavioral differences from the normal human being. This along with the style of his living conditions has caused me to believe these three arguments: Roderick Usher suffers from loneliness, Roderick’s sister partially causes his sickness, and his poor environment of his living conditions in the past shaped who he is in the present day.
There are various times throughout the passage where we can see that Roderick Usher is suffering from loneliness and has for many years. Roderick Usher when conversing with the narrator, states “a dearly loved sister – his only company for many years. Except for himself, she was the last member of his family on earth. ‘When she dies’, he said with a sadness which i can never forget, ‘when she dies, I will be the last of the old…” This demonstrates he had strong emotions about the loss of his family which caused him to be lonely and sad. This in time was a crucial factor in him becoming “sick”.
Secondly, his sister, Madeline, is another crucial part in Roderick becoming sick. According to the webpage description of psychoanalytic criticism, “Freud maintained that our desires and our unconscious conflicts give rise to three areas of the mind that wrestle for dominance as we grow from infancy, to childhood, to adulthood.” These three areas of the mind are the id, which is basically the cause of our behavior, the ego which keeps our behavior in control, and lastly, the superego which is basically your morality. In this story, Madeline is the id driving Roderick who is the ego to become sick. Roderick isn’t able to control his sister’s influence on himself so he invites the narrator, which is the superego to come be a neutral good and balance things out.
Finally, Freud’s psychoanalytic theory allows us to understand Roderick’s drastic change in behavior by considering that our environment shapes our personality. An opposite view of this could be that our personality can shape our environment. In the beginning of the “Fall of the House of Usher” the narrator describes the house as “felt strange and fearful” from looking at the house and later proceeds to describe Usher himself as being “not like a human being, but like a spirit that had come back from beyond the grave.” This demonstrates both sides of this possibility, that the house was sick and therefore caused Usher to become sick. On the other hand, Usher could have been sick first and his illness caused him to not care for the house, therefore making the house “sick”.
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The first time I read through “The Fall of The House of Usher” I did not find the story with as many details as I did reading through it the second and third time dissecting the story to understand it on a deeper level. Since I have learned about psychoanalytic criticism I have a deeper understanding of the story now. In the story you will find that Rodrick Usher is a terrified character with a disease in his mind that makes him very sensitive to the sensations every human feels everyday. For example, his eyes are very sensitive to light and can react way differently than another humans eyes. This theory could be applied to “ The Fall of the House of Usher” because of the constant recurring fears going through his mind and the repression of his fears as well as his fear of death. Part one of “The Fall of the House of Usher” states,”is actions were first too quick and then too quiet. Sometimes his voice, slow and trembling with fear, quickly changed to a strong, heavy, carefully spaced too perfectly controlled manner.” This quotation shows that Frued’s studies also show that nervousness and fear can be driven by the mind of the human, similar to Rodrick. The studies by Sigmund Frued states, ”Based on this work, Frued asserted that people’s behavior is affected by their unconscious: ‘ The notion that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires, fears, needs, and conflicts of which they are unaware of….’ (tyson 14-15)” This quotation shows that humans like Rodrick Usher are also motivated by their fears and conflicts they don’t even know about, just like he is in the short story. The studies by Frued also states, “ Tyson reminds us, however, that ‘ repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions.. We unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’… Our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress’ (15).” Even though we behave in ways that allow us to ‘play out’ our painful experiences and emotions we still go through stages of fears and being nervous about the actions occurred during that painful experience so this piece of evidence is not always reliable.
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I agree because there were many fears going through his mind which helps support your answer for the theory
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i like how you mentioned his behavior throughout the passage, helps people understand the Literary Theory more!
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Blog 2-The story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” could be psychoanalytic criticized. Rodgerick Usher was a very fearful anxious character and he suffers from a disease that makes him very hypersensitive to sensations, light, or taste. The Fall House of the House of Usher states “I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life and my mind and my soul together in some last battle with that horrible enemy: FEAR!” This quote shows that Roderick was driven by fear. Freud suggests that “ The notion that human beings are motivated event driven by desires, fears, needs and conflicts of which they are unaware….” (Tyson 14-15). This belief is definitely demonstrated throughout the story because he was so fearful that it even affected his health. Also “The Fall of the House of Usher” states “He suffered from a sickly increase in the feelings of all his senses ,he could eat only the most tasteless foods,all flowers smelled to strongly for his nose his eyes were hurt by even a light and there were few sounds that did not fill him with horror. A certain kind of sick fear was completely his master”. This means that he was always in fear. Usher was driven by all of his fears throughout the story from anxiety to almost being mad. He is so driven by his unconscious fear that it even gets a hold of his mind making him seem very crazy. So psychoanalytic criticism proved that fear had led usher into controlling his actions and anxiety.- Felicity Gibson
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The short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” gives multiple examples of Feminist theory.
My first example of how this story shows feminism is how they describe Lady Madeline throughout the passage. In the text it says: “— outside that door a shape did stand, the tall figure, in its grave-clothes, of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white dress, and the signs of her terrible efforts to escape were upon every part of her thin form. For a moment she remained trembling at the door; then, with a low cry, she fell heavily upon her brother; in her pain, as she died at last”. This piece of text evidence demonstrates how in the story they view Lady Madeline as a fragile person, considering she’s the only female in the story (white dress, thin, and trembling.) In the online source that explains feminist theory, it says that feminist themes in literature often describe women as less than men using words that make women sound fragile or small. “All feminist activity, including feminist theory and literary criticism, has as its ultimate goal to change the world by prompting gender equality.”
A second example is Lady Madeline’s dialogue, or lack of dialogue. Even though she is a main character she doesn’t speak once in the story. In the text, Poe writes: “While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so she was called) passed slowly through a distant part of the room, and without seeing that I was there, went on. I looked at her with a complete and wondering surprise and with some fear — and yet I found I could not explain to myself such feelings. My eyes followed her. When she came to a door and it closed behind her, my eyes turned to the face of her brother — but he had put his face in his hands.” This piece of text evidence shows how Lady Madeline has no dialogue throughout the story making her character more mysterious and seem as more as an inanimate object than a human. This reflects the feminist criticique of literature that sometimes stories reflect the real world , where sometimes women have no voice.
A third example of feminist theory in the story is how she reacts to certain things, in the text. For example, “The illness of the Lady Madeline had long been beyond the help of her doctors. She seemed to care about nothing. Slowly her body had grown thin and weak, and often for a short period she would fall into a sleep like the sleep of the dead. So far she had not been forced to stay in bed; but by the evening of the day I arrived at the house, the power of her destroyer.” This piece of evidence shows how she seems to let her death welcome with open arms and seem submissive over her ‘destroyer’. This also reflects how women in general were described during this time period when it comes to mental illness.
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I love the way you explained the feminist culture
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The passage, “To be taken with a grain of salt” can be seen through the perspective of feminism because there are little to no women and mostly men represented in the story by the characters and what they say or believe. The passage states, “Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener’s internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at.” I choose this because it shows that the narrator did not take into consideration the perspective of women and whether they were scared of the same things as the men were. Also the text also states, “The Murderer being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him,” It also shows the perspective of feminism because not only is the narrator and his servant men so were the victim and his murderer. Lastly, Purdue website states, “…the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women” (Tyson 83). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male dominated) and aims to expose misogyny in writing about women, which can take explicit and implicit forms.” This shows that the feminism perspective is about having an equal amount of representation and being understood and having people consider what they say, think, and do.
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When first reading “To be Taken With a Grain of Salt”, I realized that there were more men then women. When I studied the feminist’s perspective, it had then stuck out to me how the population of men was much greater than women, than it seemed there were to have been before. Feminism means there should be equal rights for both genders.First off, the narrator of the passage is also a man himself. When he is asked to do jury, the person standing next to him was also a man. As the passage states , “I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘Oblige me by counting us.’’ This is shows that the killer and one of the people in the jury with him, were males.Then right at that moment, I had then realized the victim was a man too. A piece of evidence to prove this is, “The murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” This shows how the victim was male instead of female. Finally, the killer is male as well. As the text states, “The Murderer being asked by the Judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him,” This shows the murderer is a man, because he goes by the pronouns “he/him”. In a feminist perspective, there should have been more women included in the story, to equal out the total of men and women, because the population of men is much greater than women. – by Dakota Rowe
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Great explanation of the feminism’s perspective.
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When I had first read the passage “ To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt” I noticed how the population of the men was much greater than the women. When I had then studied the feminist’s perspective, I had realized that the men’s population to the women’s was much larger than it had seemed to have been before. Feminism is the equality in rights for both men and women. To start off, the narrator of the story is male and while being asked to do jury, the person next to him was also a male. For example, “ I touched the brother – juryman whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him; oblige me by counting us.” This proves how both of the people in jury are both males. I had then recognized that the victim of the murder was also a male. The passage states, “ The murdered man seem to have a cut through his neck.” This is stating how the victim was a man and also how one of the characters was male instead of female. In conclusion, the murderer is a male as well. The passage states “ The murderer being asked by the judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of death should be passed upon him.” This is showing how the killer is male because he goes by the pronouns “ he/him”. In the feminist’s perspective, in my opinion, there should have been more females in the story, to equal to the total of men and women. Because it’s not right how the population of men was greater than the women. – Emily Wilcoxen
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As I studied feminist critisism, I found out that feminist critisism is mainly the concern about the equality of men and women. Therefore, any story told from a feminist perspective can be any gender if they agree men and women should be equal. In “To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt” the story is told from a feminist perspective, but the author is a male. Not until 1942 could women serve as jury in court, and this law only passed in twenty-eight of the fifty states. With this knowledge we should be able to tell that the author is a male when he is asked to do jury. “It was a summons to me to serve upon a jury at the forthcoming Sessions of the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey.” In this piece of evidence from the story it explains that the author was asked to do jury which means that he is a male himself. “The murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” in this piece of evidence from “To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt” It shows that the person who was murdered was also a man. In this story all of the main characters are men. Since there is a very little bit of the story that has to do with women, this makes us think that the story is told from a feminist perspective.
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Mason Guffey- When I first read, “To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt”, I didn’t realize that the story was written with very few women included; however, after reading about feminism and reading Charles Dickens’ story again, this characteristic of the story really stuck out to me. I realized how the story was focused on men primarily. The text stated, “I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment.” This sentence shows the main character as a male since he is a bachelor and although his valet’s wife is mentioned as existing, she is not a character within the story. Also, the sentence, “…by my renowned doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no stronger description, and I quote his own from his written answer to my request for it.” shows that the doctor is also a man. Finally the story continues with male dominance because the person delivering the juror letter was a man, the men on trial were men, the brother-juryman was a man, the character that had been murdered was a man, and it could be inferred that since all the jury members slept in one large room then all of the jury members were men.
The story does include a few women, such as the main character’s valet has a wife but she is not given a part within the story. Two other instances are included as well. The first one is, “A witness to character, a woman, deposed to the prisoner’s being the most amiable of mankind.” The story continues with the Appearance disagrees with her and attempts to show her as wrong. The final part where a woman is mentioned, “….I saw it bending forward and leaning over a very decent woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed their seats or not. Immediately after that, that woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out.” All of these examples of the minor parts that women play, show women as feeble and weak that cannot withstand the stress within the story as the many men can.
In conclusion, although this story is interesting, the feminism that is demonstrated is vulgar to women and does not portray them in a pleasing way.
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The theory that I chose is psychoanalytic criticism and the story I used was “The Fall of the House of Usher”. The character Roderick Usher has an illness that he knows may not get better but the way he acts and how he lives show psychoanalytic concepts such as showing signs of a traumatic childhood, being afraid of death, and not getting enough attention from his parents. On the psychoanalytic page it says, “Freud believed that our unconscious was influenced by childhood events. Freud organized these events into development stages involving relationships with parents… repression doesn’t eliminate our painful experiences and emotions… we unconsciously behave in ways that will allow us to ‘play out’… our conflicted feelings about the painful experiences and emotions we repress.” This shows that even though Roderick may have had a hard childhood he still acts out his anger and sadness he may have had during that time. The narrator (Roderick’s friend) remembers the Usher parents being very kind and giving people when they were alive and that may have caused Roderick to be unsure if he could live up to what they did or when his parents passed he may have not been able to go on with life and do what they did. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” it says, “I shall die,’ he said. ‘I shall die! I must die of this fool’s sickness. In this way, this way and no other way, I shall be lost. I fear what will happen in the future, not for what happens, but for the result of what happens. I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result — of terror! I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind, and my soul, together, in some last battle with that horrible enemy: fear!” This shows that he is not afraid of fear but the result of it. He doesn’t want death to come to him the way it did to his parents and the rest of his family. As he was growing up, I do not think he got enough attention as a child so he would try to but when his parents passed he didn’t know what to do so he just became sad. In the story “ The Fall of the House of Usher” it says, “In his manner, I saw at once, changes came and went; and I soon found that this resulted from his attempt to quiet a very great nervousness. I had indeed been prepared for something like this, partly by his letter and partly by remembering him as a boy. His actions were first too quick and then too quiet. Sometimes his voice, slow and trembling with fear, quickly changed to a strong, heavy, carefully spaced too perfectly controlled manner.” This shows that since he didn’t have his parents he may have had trouble trying to figure out how to act and how he should be without his parents and someone to look up to. In Freud’s studies he tells how the son normally fantasizes what his punishment will be from their father if they did something wrong but since Roderick did not have his dad he may have been confused.
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Blog Post 2-“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a great text to demonstrate or portray different psychoanalytic perspectives because of the many different mental struggles and mental effects that the story shows the reader. To start off as soon as the story begins the house itself begins to have mental strain on the character(s). As soon as the main character arrives at the house he already begins to feel mental strain. He feels a feeling of sadness and dreadfulness. As evidence the story says “I do not know how it was but, with the first sight of the building, a sense of heavy sadness filled my spirit.” This evidence showing that as soon as the story begins and the main character arrives at the house there is already a mental effect on him and therefore presenting room for a psychoanalytic analysis.
Another example of an area that psychoanalytical perspectives could be used is when the main character and Roderick begin talking. For example the story says “In his manner, I saw at once, changes came and went; and I soon found that this resulted from his attempt to quiet a very great nervousness. I had indeed been prepared for something like this, partly by his letter and partly by remembering him as a boy. His actions were first too quick and then too quiet. Sometimes his voice, slow and trembling with fear, quickly changed to a strong, heavy, carefully spaced too perfectly controlled manner.” While this is a large piece of evidence it can show us after some analysis that there is something mentally going on with Roderick. You can analyze that after his letter to our main character that there certainly is something wrong mentally with him, as well as maybe physically. With Roderick’s quick or slow movements, his nervousness or fear and his overall just awkwardness and unusual movements/moments that we are told that were predicted based off of the letter that our main character had received.
Using these quotes from the article you can easily analyze this article psychologically. You can read and understand the mental effects that are presented to us. Although you may not understand them initially after reading about the psychoanalytic theory in literature you can easily understand the mental effects and how they are being presented to us, as the reader.
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When first reading “To be Taken With a Grain of Salt” I had noticed that the majority of the characters are men and there were not many women. I did not consider the lack of female characters important until i studied the feminist perspective. Women and men should be portrayed as equal. First off the story is being told by a man. For example from the short story, “I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment.“ in the quote it mentions the word “bachelor”, the definition of bachelor is an unmarried man, and that definition proves that the story is being told by a man. Also the main characters servant is a man. For example from the short story, “Now, I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and attached servant for more than twenty years, had any impression whatever of having seen any such figure, until I touched him.” This proves the servant is a man because the main character refers to his servant as “ him”. Lastly the murder and the character who was murdered were both men. For example from the short story, “The murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” this proves that the character that was killed was a man because the refer to him as “man” and “his”. Also from the short story, “The murderer being asked by the judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death should be passed upon him indistinctly muttered something which was described in the leading newspapers of the following day…” This proves that the murderer was a male because they referred to him as “he”. In conclusion there should be more usage of female characters.
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When I read the short story “To be Taken with a Grain of Salt” it was easy to keep the literary theory of Feminism. This is easy when you take into account the way the women in this story are portrayed, their social standings within the book, and the sheer comparisons of how each gender effects the story. In the story we know that women within the story are portrayed as being weak or frail. We know this fr this line within the text, “… I saw it leaning forward over a very decent woman, as if to reassure itself whether the judges had resumed their seats or not.Immediately after the woman screamed, fainted, and was carried out.” We know this can support the Feminist criticism because the website States “Feminist criticism is concerned with… The ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological opression of women” in this case we see the psychological opression of women as this woman was described as being psychologically incapable of seeing the figure and not fainting. As well in this story women aren’t given any important roles politically the judges and the jury were all men. We know this from quotes such as, “I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth Juryman.”, and advanced to his Lordships desk” this shows that all the positions in this court are held by men which represents the political opression of women. And lastly women play no major part of the story, everyone in the jury being men, we can assume the judges are men because in the time period of the author (Charles Dickens) important positions in England were held by men. The person murdered and the murderer were men. So besides the woman who fainted women play no major part in this story thus representing the political and psychological opression of women as they couldn’t be in court or be thought capable of murder. Thus this story isn’t fair towards women and needs to represent them better.
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The point of view I used is a female role for the short story “To Be Taken By a Grain of Salt”. In this story there is very little females and mostly all of the characters are males. In the story the main character is a man. He is asked to do the jury were the person next to him is a man. Evidence to prove this is, “I touched the brother jury MAN whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘oblige me by counting us.” this quote proves that the main character and the jury were both male.one last piece of evidence I’m gong to provide is that the person who had murdered the man is also a man himself. More evidence to prove this is,” The murderer began asked by the judge, according to usage, whether he had anything to say before the sentence of death should be passed upon him. “These quotes prove that the person murdered was also male. The more of the story I had read “To Be Taken By a Grain of Salt” the more aware I was that there were almost way to many men.. There is a large more portion of men in the story then women. In a female perspective I understand that there should be a strong feminist side rather than a male because they already have a higher say in many other things even in story’s as “ To be taken with a grain of salt”,
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When I first read “To be taken with a Grain of Salt,” I noticed that they weren’t many women as men characters. But once I studied the feminist’s perspective it stuck out to me even more than before. Feminism is there should be equal rights for men and women. First off, the narrator is a male and is asked to be on the jury. The other character sitting by him is also a man. Evidence that supports this is “I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next to me.” This shows that at least two people on the jury were men. Also, the person that’s a ghost that the narrator sees in the story that was murdered is a male as well. I found this out by the quote, “The Murdered man seemed to have a cut through his neck.” This supports the victim was a man. To conclude, the murderer was a male as well because, “whether he had anything to say before sentence of Death be passed upon him,” so he is a male. Being in a feminist perspective, I think it would be better if they added female characters into the story, so then it would be equal to the number of men.
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I agree with you where the should add more females in the story to make it justifiable.
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Blog Post 2- Matthew Collinsworth
The story I read was “The Fall of The House of Usher”. The story was spine chilling and unearthly. I realized that I could use the psychoanalytic theory to compare these themes in the story. The story starts out by describing the castle or house that Rodrick lives in. It is very old and musty. Strange things happen at the house and strange noises can be heard. The narrator states, “I know not how it was–but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”. Upon the narrator arriving at the house he is shocked to see his friend in such bad shape. In the story it says Rodrick has a “cadaverousness of complexion”. He is suffering from an illness that makes him very sensitive to touch, sight, smell, and taste. It is indicated in the story that Roderick’s illness is all in his mind but causes him to be physically sick. If you look at Freud’s psychoanalytic theory which focuses on the development of the mind and how events in our lives can change our thoughts you can see how Roderick became the way he did and why his behavior was so strange. Apparently Rodrick’s family had a history of mental illness. His sister Madeline suffered from the same symptoms that he did. According to the story Rodrick’s sister tends to walk around ghostly and suffers from “cateleptic fits”, in which she is paralyzed for a time. Madeline also represents the theme of psychoanalytic because of her strange illness and her mental and physical appearance. By the end of the story the narrator is even feeling depressed and anxious because he is being influenced by Rodrick’s behavior. Edgar Alen Poe never directly states but the story implies that the narrator was starting to exhibit some of the same symptoms as Roderick. These examples elaborate on the theme that the story was spine chilling and unearthly. It also shows how the story can be psychoanalyzed.
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I gathered some of the same points that you did in the story. When the story talks about his gray pale skin and how the light hurt his eyes. It sounds like him and his sister were basically prisoners of the house and never even went outside. Especially since the story talks about the poor conditions of the outside of the house. It is obvious they didn’t even go out there to maintain the exterior of the house.
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Blog post two- “The Fall Of The House Usher” focuses on Roderick usher, the final usher in the family and he was ill and it seemed like a creepy story but I pretty quickly realized it very well could be psychoanalytically criticized Roderick already being quite anxious and scared in general also suffers from a disease of the mind that causes him to be irregularly sensitive toward sensations,light,taste, and sound. It states in the text “he could only eat the most tasteless foods , all the flowers where too strong for his nose, his eyes where hurt by even little light, and there where a few sounds that did not fill him with horror” this shows how this illness causes him to experience that kind of fear. He was living in fear and we eventually find out that it has overcame him, “he too was killed by his own fear.” And he knew it would happen eventually because as it said in the passage “I feel that the time will soon arrive when I must lose my life, and my mind,and my soul together in some last battle with that horrible enemy Fear!”this was something that had always haunted usher usher and left him in a such terrified state, things he once loved left him in pain had he gotten over his fears they may not have overcame him. In conclusion he wouldn’t get over his fears ,they kept piling up and he was scared of dying and ending the family line and then that’s what ended up happening
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I like the perspective that you chose when you focused on his fear of dying. I also felt like he was scared of what was waiting for him at the end. He didn’t seem to want to let his sister go either. I guess he didn’t want to be more lonely than he already was or he wouldn’t have sent a letter to his friend that he hadn’t seen for so many years.
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second blog – The perspective I have chosen to write about is the feminist perspective. The first time I read ” To be Taken by a Grain of Salt” I didn’t think much of the lack of female characters and representation, I honestly didn’t notice it at all. But once I read and learned about the feminist perspective the lack of females stood out to me a little more. for example the main character of the story is a man himself. But the story is full of more men than just him. Most of the other characters are men to like the murdered man and the murderer. A piece of evidence to prove this is” I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East. They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance of some thirty paces,” Along with the murdered man and the murderer the main characters butler was also a man. “My servant’s back was towards that door. While I was speaking to him I saw it open…” the murderers attorney was also a man ” The prisoner’s wish to challenge me was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with his client, and shook his head.’ these pieces of text show that a great sum of the characters were made up of men. so from a feminist perspective reading this story it could diffidently use some more female characters. – Johie Haney
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Using the story of The House Of The Usher the perspective I chose was feminism because of the lack of female influence in the story. The only female character in the story was Madeline and we never got to hear her side of the story or her experience in the house.
The theory I have chosen is psychoanalytic. In The Fall Of The House Of The Usher it describes Roderick’s strange behavior as an “illness of the body-of a sickness of the mind.” In the webpage it states “Freud believed that our unconscious was influenced by childhood events.” In the story it talks about how Usher’s house he grew up in was “the cold stone walls of the building — empty eye-like windows — and a few dead trees.” We can only imagine what Roderick’s childhood was like living in that house. It sounds like he was very lonely because of Madeline’s death like sleep and he describes in the letter that his only friend was the man he wrote the letter too. In the end he lived a life of isolation with his sister. That could make anyone go crazy.
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The literary theme I chose was feminist for the story “To Be Taken By a Grain of Salt” when you first read it I don’t think much about the lack of female representation to be completely honest i didn’t really notice it until i read it again after i had pointed it out to myself. The main character was a man himself along with the other important characters I had also taken it in to account the year the story was written and thought maybe that played a contributing role in the lack of female representation. I think this excerpt from the text contributed to the acknowledgement to the lack of female characters.” I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from West to East. They were one behind the other. The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him, at a distance of some thirty paces,” this part of a major contributing part of the text yet did not mention any role of a female. a another piece of evidence that contributed to the acknowledgement of the lack of female characters.“I touched the brother jury man whose place was next to me, and I whispered to him, ‘oblige me by counting us.” this quote also proves that the jury and victim was male these statements proves that the theme of the story did not embrace feminine culture but more or less didn’t even acknowledge it was there.
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I like the way you worded this and explained it well!!
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The imagery, characterization, and sequence of events contribute to the development of the theme of the story ”the monkey’s paw” by starting off with the imagery part. It contributes a lot to the visualization of the story the way the words are arranged makes you think visually or ”imaginary” about the story like in the story it says ”A loud knock echoed through the house” It makes an imaginary visualization in your head of a loud noise being made through the house. Now with the characterization, it helps with the development of the theme by the characters reacting to differently to the situations that are going on in the story leading to the main plot or ”theme” the characters have different personalities and different thinking with every single situation. Like in the story how the mother reacts about her son being dead. ”A loud knock echoed through the house” ’it’s Herbert she screamed its Herbert !” it shows characterization by her emotions. The sequence of events helps develop the ”theme” by placing the story in chronological order that helps plot the theme the sequence of events starts off by introducing the characters like… Mr. and Mrs. White and the son Herbert and the solider then by raising the climax by the solider telling the family about the Monkeys paw story and then continuing on with the family making wishes with the paw and etc. The sequence of events is a very very important part in making a story a story or bringing a main ”theme” to prove a point of a main idea or lesson. So in the end the imagery details, characterization, and sequence of events come all together to make a theme like in the real world we all have stories but we need characters or emotions or anything to lead up to the ”theme ” or main point to our story… They help shape any good theme And are very important.
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I feel that “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a good story to be psychoanalytically criticized. Roderick Usher suffers from a disease, and has hypersensitivity to the light taste and sound. “The Fall of the House of Usher” states “he suffered much from a sickly increase in the feeling of all the senses; he could eat only the most tasteless food; all flowers smelled too strongly for his nose; his eyes were hurt by even a little light; and there were few sounds that did not fill him with horror.” Roderick believes his thoughts are true, this makes him a perfect candidate for psychoanalysis. In signmund Freud it has “ the notation that human beings are motivated, even driven, by desires,fears, needs, and conflicts of which the. Are unaware.” (Tyson 14-15). Shown that your unconsciousness has the ability to cause emotions such as fear.” The belief that emotions control people lives can be shown here in “The Fall of the House of Usher” by showing how Roderick the last of his days only appealing to the needs of his fear. Roderick’s fears rule his life. If he had overcame his fears he would have lived and many of his fears like dying or ending his family tree would not have come to pass. Because of this “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a perfect example of how the statement that we are motivated by our fears and emotions is true – anna saunders
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I love you vocabuary use in you peice.
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Feminist perspective is when women are excluded in a story like in The Fall of the House of Usher. I know this because the webpage says, “The exclusion of women writers from the traditional literary canon…” Looking at the story it shows feminist perspective because all the characters in the story are males including the author, Edgar Allen Poe. Also, the only woman in the story is overruled by her twin brother because he ends up burring her alive. And finally by saying this, equality for both males and females in this story is unjustifiable. Looking back in the story when it says, “I rode over a short bridge to the house. A man who worked in the house — a servant — took my horse, and I entered. Another servant, of quiet step, led me without a word through many dark turnings to the room of his master.” If reading this correctly all the servants in the house are males including Usher and the main character. Including the thought of Usher the Master of the house he was also the master of Madeline before he buried her alive. Which means that she had to listen to what Usher said when he said it. So by concluding the thought of feminist perspective, the story is very biased when it came to Madeline.
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In” To Be Taken as a Grain of Salt “I noticed that the amount of women in the story is nothing close to the amount of woman in the story.how i know this is because the narrator was in the court and the juryman was a man i know this because.In the text is says”I touched the brother-juryman whose place was next to me,and i whispered to him,’oblige me by counting us.” Another way there is more men than woman in the story is the main character is a man, i know this because in the text he stated,”I am a bachelor,and my valet and his wife constitute my whole establishment.”And i know that a bachelor is a man who has never been married.Also my last way to show that there was more men in the story than women is in the text it says”I saw two men on the opposite side of the way,going from west to east.” In a feminist perspective I believe there should have been the same amount of women and men in the story.This show how a feminist most likely wrote “To Be Taken As a Grain of Salt”
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As I read the story “To be taken with a grain of salt” I immediately noticed the lack of women in it, and all of the main characters were men. and this is important through a feminist perspective because feminism is the equality of men and women. Some of the male characters were the main character, the murderer, the jurymen, and the victim. it also states “I saw two men on the opposite side of the way going from east to west.” The main character states “i am a bachelor,” so that’s how i know he is a male, the murderer is a male because it states, “We hear more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession to their atrocious eminence, and i would bury the memory of this particular brute, if i could, as his body was buried, in Newgate jail.” and ‘I touched the Brother-Juryman whose place was next to me, and i whispered to him,”. All of this evidence proves how there were multiple men in this story and a lack of women, so that’s why i viewed this through a feminist perspective.
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In the story the “Fall of the house of usher” psychoanalytic is criticized in the story as Roderick Usher is effected by a diease in the mind that causes “Acuteness of the senses” such as hyper-senseitiveity to light, sounds, taste etc, The story focuses on psychoanalysis his mind, his thoughts, his feelings, and etc. I wonder why the author wanted to use “psychoanalysis” in his story why did he make a man “Roderick” with these mental issues that causes the lack of his senses ?. Why didn’t he involve more characters ?, Or more Settings ?
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I chose feminist for the story “To Be Taken By a Grain of Salt”. In the story there barely any women and lots of male characters. Main characters were men, men were the center of attention throughout the story. The story states,”The murdered man had seemed to have a cut through his neck.” The main character is male, and is with other male characters. The text also states,”I touched the brother jury man whose place was next to me…” This quotes prove that the main character and the jury man are both men. Lastly, the murderer is a man. The text states,”The murderer began asked by the judge,according to usage,weather he had anything to say before the sentence of death should be passed upon him.” This quote shows that the murderer was a male character. In this story, there is barely any female interaction at all.
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“The Monkey’s Paw” and “To Be Taken With A Grain of Salt” make a good ghost stories because of the imagery, characterization, and sequence of events of events contributing to the development of the themes.
In ”The Monkey’s Paw” nothing is free. In this story the price of the wish for two hundred pounds to pay off the house was the death of their son. “We’ll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again.” Characteristics of the wife help the development of the theme because if the wife had been able to accept that nothing comes for free, she would not have brought the “monster” to their home. In this ghost story through the use of sequence of events that contributed to it being a good ghost story, Mr. Morris says “I don’t know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s how I got the paw.”, and Mr.White says “I wish for two hundred pounds”, The sequence of events in this story even though they knew what happened to another wisher, they risked the consequences.This makes it a good ghost story because the story foresight how consequential the wish of the paw could be. This is how the theme of “The Monkey’s Paw” with the use of characteristics and sequence of events made this a good ghost story.
In “To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt” the theme is people will get what is earned or deserved in the end. In this story the reason the Ghost deserved justice is because he was murdered and the murderer earned the haunting and punishment of hanging. … “‘Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I fancied I saw a—-‘ As I there laid my hand upon his breast, with a sudden start he trembled violently, and said, ‘O Lord yes sir! A dead man beckoning!’” The imagery in this sentence makes this a good ghost story because it helps the reader visualize how the narrator is being pulled into the haunted experience of the ghost’s murder ….and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver which started the chair from its position… I saw two men on the opposite side of the way…The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him… with his right hand menacingly raised. First, the singularity and steadiness of this threatening gesture in so public a thoroughfare, attracted my attention” and also “‘My Lord, I knew I was a doomed man when the Foreman of my Jury came into the box. My Lord, I knew he would never let me off because, before I was taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, woke me, and put a rope round my neck.’” This sequence of events helps the development of the theme for the early experience of the narrator with the ghost showing what had happened, to the reveal of the murderer’s punishment. This how the theme of “To be taken with a grain of salt” with the help of sequence of events and imagery makes it a good ghost story.
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I am doing a feminist perspective on the story “To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt.” First of all, I was immediately in awe of the almost complete lack of women in the story. There is only one woman who is even mentioned in the whole of the story. The murderer was a man, as the text says, “…I wish to avoid reviving the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also because a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispensable to my narrative…” The victim was a man, as the text says, “…some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the murdered man.” The officer was a man, as the text says, “I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that officer. He was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging…” Through a feminist perspective -feminist meaning the equality of both men and women- there were way too many males and not nearly enough females in the story. Yes, there was one mention of a female, but that was only one, and she wasn’t even an actual character in the story, she was only mentioned once and never again.
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