Edgar Allan Poe's short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” details the end of a family line Southern aristocrat in a Gothic way that is to be expected from Poe. Although Poe's writing focuses primarily on the Gothic quality, it is important to also note the Southern nature of his writing. Poe may have been born in Boston, but he grew up in the South. Although the sense of Southern quality is not at the forefront of his works, there is a Southern influence in Poe's Gothic writing style that merits examination for its depiction of the antebellum South. Ellen Glasgow, a postwar Southern author who demonstrates the birth of the critical spirit in Southern literature, uses the same underlying Gothic principles and themes established by Poe in "The Fall of the House of Usher" in her short story "Jordan's End" . to parallel the end of a Southern family line with the end of the old Southern way of life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay On the surface, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The End of Jordan” both appear nearly identical in style and story. Both stories focus on the mental decline of the last of a family line, develop a gothic atmosphere and explore the theme of isolation. However, when comparing the two stories, it becomes apparent that Poe and Glasgow have different authorial intentions in their writings. Poe's writing demonstrates cohesion between the gothic elements of the story, which suggests that his only intentions were to create a stand-alone horror work, and it is mere coincidence that the setting of "The Fall of the House of Usher" both in Virginia. The authors of The Companion to Southern Literature: Themes, Genres, Places, People, Movements, and Motifs state that “Poe records little that is obviously Virginian. The emphasis falls on a sublime Gothic beauty/terror” (Flora, MacKethan and Todd 942). However, there is a sense of eloquence in Poe's writing that can only be achieved by a Southern gentleman. In contrast to this, Glasgow uses elements of Gothic literature to criticize the lifestyle of the Old South instead of fixating only on the beauty and terror of Gothic stylization. Poe writes Gothic works to create something eloquent and otherworldly; Glasgow uses the Gothic style to support a critical examination of the fall of the Old South and the people of that time period. Glasgow establishes a very Southern quality in his work through the use of local color, mention of the Civil War, and the character of Father Peterkin. Father Peterkin allows Glasgow to include aspects of Southern literature more freely without disturbing the unity of the story, and his dialect reveals a very Southern quality. The narrator of “Jordan's End” reflects on Father Peterkin's dialect after learning the correct Virginian pronunciation of the surname “Jordan”: “The name was invariably called Jurdin by all classes; but I had already discovered that names are rarely pronounced as they are written in Virginia” (359). Glasgow helps establish the southern element of the story in the distinction of Father Peterkin's dialect. Poe establishes a theme of isolation in "The Fall of the House of Usher" which is maintained in Glasgow's "Jordan's End." Geographic isolation is an important factor to consider in Southern literature because living in the rural Old South means being isolated from the rest of the nation and other local populations. Isolation affected how southern people lived their lives in the Old South. People who lived in rural areas of theOld Souths like Roderick Usher and Alan Jordan were confined by geographic boundaries like mountains and rivers. Neighbors and towns were far away, which made socializing outside of the family difficult. Poe describes Roderick Usher's isolation: I had also learned the very remarkable fact, that the stock of the Usher race, time-honored though it was, had never, at any period, produced any lasting branch; in other words, that the whole family was in the direct line of descent, and had always been, with very insignificant and very temporary variations, so. (104) Poe means that the Usher family has always been small. There has never been any deviation from a direct line of descent among the Ushers, and this essentially means that the Usher gene pool is limited. In much the same way, Glasgow describes the Jordan family as so completely isolated that they practiced intermarriage and inbreeding. Inbreeding in the Jordan family leads to the development of mental illness in the men of the Jordan family, and like the Ushers, they never expanded their family beyond an immediate line of descent which is ultimately the cause of their family's demise. lines. As described by Father Peterkin, a character in “Jordan's End,” the Jordan family “just runs until they plant” (Glasgow 359). Glasgow suggests that grotesque inbreeding is a product of both isolation and Old South thinking. One literary critic outlines the argument: It was narrow-mindedness born of pride, ethnocentrism born of ignorance, that brought families like the Jordans to the kind of inbreeding that has produced madness generation after generation. The way of life, the way of thinking, and the refusal to admit that things had changed were all causes of the decline of the Southern aristocracy. (Ross) Glasgow follows Poe in using Southern aristocratic characters, but does so to discuss the decline of those types of people in the Old South. Glasgow wishes to give the reader an understanding of the decay of an old way of life, and does so using the Jordan family as a symbol of the end of an era in the South. Both Poe and Glasgow use symbolism in their tales to aid in desired effects. Poe uses symbolism in "The Fall of the House of Usher" in his description of the Usher family home. Poe writes about the house in a way that favors its careful Gothic structure: The discoloration of time has been great. Tiny mushrooms covered the entire exterior, hanging in a thin web tangled from the gutters. Yet all this was excluded from any extraordinary degradation. No part of the masonry had fallen; and there seemed to be a huge inconsistency between the still perfect fit of its parts and the dilapidated state of the individual stones. (105) Poe writes about the inconsistency of how the House of Usher seems to be falling apart and defying time at the same time because the same inconsistency exists in his character Roderick Usher. Poe uses the house as a symbol for the character Roderick Usher. Poe describes Roderick Usher: “I looked upon him with a feeling half of pity and half of amazement” (106). Poe uses this symbolization as a way to create a more cohesive tale in which all parts are intertwined. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe states that "critics have long noted that 'The Fall of the House of Usher' is carefully structured" (Hayes 179). The main goal of Poe's writing is to create a unified piece of literature. Both stories use symbolism in their names. “The Fall of the House Usher” has a double meaning because it tells the story of the fall of the Usher family line, and the house imitates the Usher family and declines throughout the span of the tale until it eventually falls too. Poe creates a connection between the royal houseof the Usher family and the Ushers themselves, and it does so very literally. It's as if the house and the Usher family are one and the same. Poe writes that Roderick Usher fell to the ground dead, and he also writes that the walls of the house "fell to pieces" (116). Once again, the symbolization used by Poe in this work is crafted in such a way as to unify every single aspect of his writing. “Jordan's End” also offers a double meaning in the symbolism of its name: “It is the name of the dilapidated southern mansion which is the main setting of the story, and is also a reference to the state of decay of the Jordan family” (DelFattore and Cassidy). The connection that Poe establishes between the Usher family and the Usher house is maintained in “Jordan's End” and the connection can be seen through similar depictions of Alan Jordan's appearance and the Jordan House. Glasgow describes the Jordan family home: Desolate as it appeared on this first approach, I supposed that Jordan's End must once have possessed charm as well as distinction. The proportions of the Georgian facade were impressive, and there was a beauty of design in the picturesque doorway and rounded stone steps which were now covered in brocade with an emerald moss pattern. But the whole place was in desperate need of repairs. (360) Alan Jordan is similarly described: “His head was lowered forward, his eyes stared fixedly at some image we could not see; her restlessly moving fingers plaited and untied the fringe of a plaid shawl. Shocked as he was, he still possessed the dignity of mere physical perfection” (364). The similarities between how Poe and Glasgow connected family and the family home demonstrate a clear coherence with both texts. Glasgow, however, uses symbolism a little more abstractly in his story than Poe. The decline of the Jordan family is symbolic of the decline of the old Southern way of life after the Civil War. Some critics agree with the assertion that Glasgow is discussing the fall of the old Southern way of life in his work: "the condition of the physical place where the last of the line of Jordans resides mirrors the condition of that line, and by extension , the decline of a way of life” (Ross). There are many parallels that can be seen in the end of the Jordan family line and the end of the Old South way of life. Glasgow speaks directly to the parallel between the Jordan family and the South. before and after the Civil War through Father Peterkin. Father Peterkin says: “I remember when old Mr. Timothy Jur'dn was the proudest man around here, but after the war things began to go wrong with him” (359). Glasgow uses Father Peterkin as a means to create a direct connection in his writings between the Jordan family and the Southern way of life. He creates this direct connection so that readers can more easily see the parallel between the fall of the Old South and the fall of the Usher family. Glasgow suggests that Jordan and the Old South seemed to function properly before the war. After the war, however, we witnessed a collapse of the way of life. What had once been prosperous experienced its decline and the turning point was the Civil War. More abstractly, the ending of Glasgow's tale remains ambiguous and can be examined as another parallel between the Jordan family line and the Old South. The doctor left Alan Jordan a bottle full of painkillers, but, when he returned to see Jordan the The next day, the bottle was empty and Jordan was dead. The ambiguity of his death lies in the idea that someone may have killed him with painkillers left by the doctor, but Glasgow does not explicitly state how Jordan died. A parallel can be drawn. 2015.