Native American Women in The Fall of the House of Usher by...

Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative follows the tradition of stories of women from Anglican descents that are seized by Native Americans, a genre that was enormously popular in the US at the turn of the 17th century. A defining work of American literature that presented accounts of Indian barbarity, the gallantry and superiority of white male settlers, and the helplessness of white women in need of protection and rescue. Correspondingly, Madeline Usher, the entombed sister from Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher† is presented as a bawling woman whose identity and voice is unnarratable. Madeline is not only a frightful looking and hysterical woman, but conversely a wailing body from the foundation of the House of Usher whose plight encourages us to deconstruct what else lies beneath the social and cultural foundations on which not merely the house, but the nation itself was built upon. I will use Mary Rowlandsons Narrative of the Capti vity and Edgar Allan Poes short story, The Fall of the House of Usher to illustrate how Americas physical, ethical, and ideological landscapes have been mapped on in these works, and at the expenditure of, the female body. Juxtaposing The stories of Mary Rowlandson and Madeline Usher, two women, illustrates how whether they are held captive, restored, or â€Å"put living in the tomb,† continue a state of dependence, subject to communal and discursive creations of female identity and become exemplifications of whiteShow MoreRelated Biography of Edgar Allan Poe Essay11890 Words   |  48 PagesBiography of Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe was born at 33 Hollis Street, Boston, Mass., on January 19, 1809, the son of poverty stricken actors, David, and Elizabeth (born Arnold) Poe. His parents were then filling an engagement in a Boston theatre, and the appearances of both, together with their sojourns in various places during their wandering careers, are to be plainly traced in the play bills of the time. Paternal Ancestry The father ofRead MoreHistory of the Development of the Short Story.3660 Words   |  15 Pages(1824–26) and Nikolai Gogols Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (1831–32). The first examples in the United States are Charles Brockden Browns Somnambulism (1805), Washington Irvings Rip van Winkle (1819) and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), Edgar Allan Poes Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1840) and Nathaniel Hawthornes Twice-Told Tales (1842). In the latter 19th century, the growth of print magazines and journals created a strong demand for short fiction of between 3,000 and 15Read MoreANALIZ TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS28843 Words   |  116 Pagesbetween plot and character is a vital and necessary one. Without character, there would be no plot and, hence, no story. For most readers of fiction the primary attraction lies in the characters, in the endlessly fascinating collection of men and women whose experiences and adventures in life form the basis of the plots of the novels and stories in which they appear. Part of the fascination with the characters of fiction is that we come to know them so well, perhaps at times too well. In real life