i need help on the romatic ideal of imagination over reality over the THe fall of the house of usher and The masque of the red death and if possibal the comparsion of these stories

-- Anonymous, July 09, 2002

Answers

Usher and Prospero both use fantastic art as a flight from doom and death with a theme of burial or enclosure. Prospero buries himself in his palace of the serveral garish party rooms to lock out the Re dDeath(though the last room contains symbols of the deadly reality and real time). Usher locks his dead sister in the tomb and tried to ignore her reawakening and fateful approach. Literally they use the wildest most forced art to escape yet contained within is the fear that will consume them as well.

Look at Roderick and the narrator sharing artistic endeavors and philosophies culiminating in the last tale that parallels the return of Madeleine- and the fall of the house(Mind, body, family, building). Look at Prospero's architecture and his party, interrupted by the chimes of the clock in the last room until the Red Death breaks in as one of the masked guests. Two variations of claustrophobic, psychological architectures symbolizing the mind under the assault of time.

The artists revolt but do no more in the end than to figure their separate dooms. It is death and time and reality that triumph in this life. Poe seems to be ambiguous about the romantic striving and revolt of the artist?

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2002

I liked these stories, and this is a good summary and comparison.

-- Anonymous, July 11, 2002