Student Question
What does the use of colors symbolize in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"?
Quick answer:
In "The Fall of the House of Usher," colors symbolize the pervasive decay and death surrounding the characters. The predominant use of whites, greys, and blacks reflects lifelessness, while the occasional red highlights ominous or violent events, such as the blood on Usher's sister. This color scheme mirrors Usher's gloomy personality and is reinforced by his poem "The Haunted Palace," which contrasts vibrant past colors with the present gloom. The blood-red moon symbolizes the house's final collapse.
The palette used in "The Fall of the House of Usher" is very restricted. Apart from an ominous red light, and the red blood on the clothes of Usher's sister at her final appearance, the text lingers on dead whites, greys, and blacks, all symbolic of a lack of life and health:
a few white trunks of decayed trees...
the ebon blackness of the floors...
Dark draperies hung upon the walls.
His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan...
the huge antique panels....ponderous and ebony jaws...
This dim palette compliments and reflects the mood and personality of Usher himself, whom the narrator says possessed
a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom...
Usher's grim verses entitled "The Haunted Palace" reinforce this, telling of a kingdom that declined from color and light, "Banners yellow, glorious, golden..." "pearl and ruby glowing" into colorless gloom relieved only by crimson light, "Through the red-litten windows, see....Through the pale door...." In a final irony, the ultimately futile escape of Usher's sister from her premature burial is accompanied by the contrasting tale the protagonist is reading to Usher to cheer him up, full of gold and silver tones, and the final collapse of the house is announced when the blood-red moon breaks through the fissure in its fabric as it sinks into the lake.
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