The "Unhealthy" in "The Fall of the House of Usher": Poe's Aesthetics of Contamination

Author(s): David Roche

Source: The Edgar Allan Poe Review , SPRING 2009, Vol. 10, No. 1 (SPRING 2009), pp. 20-
35
Published by: Penn State University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41507856

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 20 The "Unhealthy"

The "Unhealthy" in "The

Poe's Aesthetics of Contamination
David Roche

In L'Imagination malsaine (L'Harmattan, 2008), I tried to follow Freud's

example in "The Uncanny" by starting with a study of the adjective "malsain,"
feeling that some of the ambiguities raised by the morphology of the French
word were lost in the English word, "unhealthy."1 Historically, the adjective
was mainly used to describe physical and mental ailments; the non-literal or
"moral" sense of the word (which is predominant in contemporary French and
has come to mean "immoral," "perverse" or "disturbing") was employed later
in the nineteenth century when it was notably used to describe literary works.
If the adjective initially suggested the idea of contamination or contagion
(which medical usage distinguishes insomuch as the first is propagated by the
non-human, the second by the human), the non-literal sense would tend to be
metaphorical. Gerard Genette's study, "Metonymie chez Proust," when the
critic speaks of "metonymie contagion"2 and argues that a "metaphor-effect"
is often rooted in a "metonymy-cause,"3 enabled me to articulate the notion of
"unhealthy" around these two figures. Examples from David Cronenberg's
films also suggested that, if a symptom becomes the visible metaphor of the
disease, the symptom is nevertheless linked to an invisible metonymical chain
of spatial or causal contiguity. L'Imagination malsaine, I did not, however, refer
to Susan Sontag's groundbreaking Illness as Metaphor, since she deals with the
metaphoric uses of specific diseases, namely TB and cancer, but my thesis does
confirm her demonstration that the disease's reality and gratuitousness, or what
I would call the disease's corporeality, is, in a sense, repressed by "metaphoric
thinking."4 My study of metaphors also backs up Sontag's demonstration that
individual diseases such as TB and cancer are feared as if they were "morally, if
not literally, contagious,"5 so that the metaphoric seems to become metonymical.
With the "unhealthy," I argue, the metaphor is, in effect, rooted in the metonymy.
Moreover, if the foreign body and the contagious subject are deemed "unhealthy"
to a healthy subject by a subject or the (medical, moral, etc.) law, it is, in fact,
the relation between the two that is "unhealthy" (19). This implies a certain
degree of subjectivity in the attribution of the value "unhealthy" and raises the
question of the relationship between the subject and the law.

Few studies of "The Fall of the House of Usher" deal, even in passing, with
illness and disease, much less contamination. Edward Hungerford shows how

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 phrenology infor
mainly diegetic
that the narrato
concludes that t
for excessive se
because of the
'scientific' ninet
is of particular
he describes "e
"unhealthy" to
physically, men

David W. Butler
very set of sym
arguing that it
of Usher's disease"9 in order to understand the relation between Roderick's
medical condition and romanticism.10 Yet, further on, he underlines "the
inability of contemporary physicians to agree upon the location of the seat
of the disorder in their attempts to explain its psychosomatic operations,"10
before concluding that the tale is a "dramatization of the impossibility of
developing unquestionably valid and complete medical ... explanations of some
extraordinary private experiences."11 If it were clear that Poe was interested
in and influenced by the medical and scientific trends of his times which he
intentionally incorporated into his stories, my reading of "The Fall of the House
of Usher" ultimately points at the impossibility of locating the cause of the
illness with any certainty. I thus disagree with critics who have tried to prove
that the tale is a story of vampirism, with either Madeline as the vampire12 or
the house,13 for if vampirism is, indeed, for me a metaphor of the "unhealthy"
(57-83), and if the story certainly displays symptoms of vampirism no doubt
intentional on Poe's part, the "vampire" diagnosis cannot be made with any
more certainty than that of "hypochondria."

Claude Richard is the only critic who, analyzing the tale's narrative structure as
displaying the narrator's transformation into Usher,14 comes to the conclusion
that "the meaning of the tale (evolution from one point to another) is the
contamination" (113). I clearly side with critics like Richard Wilbur,15 Daniel
Hoffman16 and Claude Richard who sees the narrator as the "only source"
(92) of the story, as opposed to critics who focus on Roderick Usher alone.
My argument follows Richard's, as I mean to show how Poe's aesthetics of
contamination greatly participate in the tale's "constructiveness" in terms of

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22 The " Unhealthy "

its diegesis, lyric structure and re

term "constructiveness" from Sco
Fiction,"17 "a story about its own
(188), an argument this essay clea
to Walter Evans who describes
held together by "the story's essen
aesthetics of contamination wil
together by relations that are just a
representation of the unhealthy, th
and the mise en abyme of the "un

In L' Imagination malsaine I defin

possible the transmission of phy
a foreign body (a parasite, bacter
subject or humanized entity or ob
In this sense, it is not the "fungi"
"unhealthy," but their relation to th
When the foreign body is non-hum
it is a case of contagion or heredit
subject, the latter is then conside
through the metaphor (37). The u
certain degree of subjectivity as t
blurs the dividing line between s
and Lady Madeline's disease are
destroyer" (145) - while the narr
him, as we shall see below.

"The Fall of the House of Usher" c

relations. The narrator says that
literallyunhealthy; the "influence
the gray walls and turrets . . . bro
( 144). This is something the narrato
the house and "a sense of insuf
describes it in both physical and m
or "an iciness, a sinking, a sicken
that Roderick believes "the nature o
a family evil, "(143) hence genetic
Roderick's and Madeline's states as co
"dread," while the brother has "a m

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all objects of t
gloom" (144-45)
invited "with a
alleviation of [R
contagious - de
[has] dominion
was no wonder
upon me, by slo
impressive supe
doctor's own co
"trepidancy" (1

The tale's repre

and the mental
and transcend
Recalling Roder
of acute bodily
the dash funct
the physical an
the use of itali
contiguity betw
between the ps
"spirit," "soul,
used indiscrim
used discrimina
contiguity with
by the body: the
Moreover, these
soul/spirit, men
and I would sug
essential aspect

The narrator c
patient as Rich
physiognomy,
conclusions co
moulded chin, s
(142). Again, th
this time thanks

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24 The " Unhealthy "

the narrator reads Roderick Usher

nervous agitation" (139). The narr
various clinical signs - Roderick's
his knowledge of his friend's pers
I had indeed been prepared, no les
certain boyish traits, and by conc
conformation and temperamen
Madeline's symptoms (145). George
pathological are not clearly separate,
Indeed, the narrator's description
one, determined by medical discou
entombed the lady in the maturity
a strictly cataleptical character, th
and the face"( 151, emphasis added
becomes ordinary with time, so th
the features of the mental disorde
Roderick Usher's "ordinary mann

Canguilhem also draws attention

the symptom as a proof or a sign
articulating his pain which is wha
the first place: "there is nothing i
conscious mind, and in particular,
is the sick patient's point of view th
What I want to draw attention to, h
signs speak of themselves, he is ac
according to the grids provided by
psychology, etc.) which establish t
In other words, he is, as Judith Butl
making matter signify. Butler arg
sign, is always posited or signifie
effect of its own procedure the very
claims to
discover as that which p
malsaine, I
relate this, more gener
the sign and the signifier which I
of something when it is actually t
narrator sees as "evidence," what e
his friend's body, temperament, h
uphold these signs as preexisitng p

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What I am argu
the "pathologic
the moral (and th
is, in effect, di
consciously arti
thought, but, as
and writers of
name and label
rational terms,
attitude toward s
literary theory
available that w
the origins and e
Kantian philosop
aesthetic intelli
that, in "The Fa
the accumulatio
to speak, the dis
obsessed him. Th
effects that par

The rhetorical e
are of a repetit
root, or sounds,
the epigraph su
form of acculum
contamination.
of inertia and t
the opening sen
do construct a w
inhabitants (inclu
of art, namely
in engendering,
that suggest the
the semantic fie
symptoms ("unn
In fact, most of
of space and at
"view," "scene,"

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 26 The "Unhealthy"

"dream," "awe"). Words like "

are among the most repeated, l
as particularly contaminating;
implies a relation of transmis
"character," two of the most freq
parasitical signifiers can cling, he
signifier (or the foreign body)
between this signifier and anot

It is, then, this web of signifie

meanings as the reader progress
calls the "inertia" of the text. A
"ghastly," "character") are used
the house, then the inhabitants, a
that the chain of contamination
"wild," "awe," "influence," "air"
word "gloom" is never associated
the pattern of the contamination,
to determine the exact nature of Roderick and Madeline Usher's disorder or
to state with any certainty that the "barely perceptible fissure" (141), which
provides the rational explanation for the house's fall, was actually there when
the narrator arrived. This disordered contamination participates in undermining
the narrator's defense (in every sense of the word) of reason and rationality,
the narrator characterizing Roderick's belief in the house's influence over his
constitution as "superstitious" when it only confirms his first description of the
house's capacity to cause the "fancy" of an outsider like himself to be taken by
"superstition" (144, 140).

Phonic repetitions also have an important role in the tale's aesthetics of

contamination. They are very present in the opening paragraph where some
serve to reinforce certain cause-effect relations, e.g., the "g/impse" enabling the
"gloom" to "pervade[]" the narrator's "spirit," while others underscore the idea
that the narrator is deprived of his faculties, notably with the use of the privative
prefix un- ("unredeemed," "unnerved," "unsatisfactory") (138, emphasis added).
The dominant alliteration in the passage and in the story is, no doubt, the [d]34
which, in the opening paragraph, links certain signifiers, sometimes reinforcing
the lexical repetitions. In so doing, they strengthen the relation the narrator
establishes between the aspect of the domain ("During the whole of a dull, dark.
and soundless day," "clouds," " dreary ," "desolate," "landscape," "domain,"

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"decayed") and
dreariness") (13
significantly to
the various sem
disease and deat
the progression
narrator may h
the direct line
"undeviating tr
emphasis added)
and Madeline U
emphasis added
contamination v
invisible, giving
on the mirror-
"character," I wa
as a contaminat
that charge it w
The alliteration,
metonymical, b

A musical meta
"passionate dev
determined by
Usher is afflict
by his one-man
and the patholo
to his own mus
the only possib
as its creator's
Usher's "speaki
perversion and
(145).
In the en
accompanied th
mind but, on th
tottering of hi
the poem is "po
abyme, a minia
(148) mentioned

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 28 The "Unhealthy"

Roderick is himself producing, w

Daniel Hoffman sees "the severa
whole."38 More recently, C. T. W
all of the arts were woven into th
references to art and to the effects of art Poe was so concerned with thematize
not only the possible relation between Poe's much-discussed disorders and
his own production of art, but also its possible reception by the readers who
reflect the narrator's own position as a witness to, and a possible recipient of,
the contaminating atmosphere. Like Ronald Bieganowski40 and Scott Peeples,41
I believe the narrator resembles the "ideal reader." If the House of Usher is
just as much the diegetic house as the tale, then, at a metafictional level, "the
travellers" (148) mentioned in the opening paragraph are none other than Poe's
anticipated audience.

Indeed, the aesthetics of contamination examined above draws attention to the

relations among the house, the atmosphere, its inhabitants and the art they produce
or consume, and I see the common denominator as being that the narrator's
experience of these is an aesthetic one. In the opening paragraph, the narrator
compares the house and its surroundings to a "scene" and a "picture" which
awakens emotions in him ("gloom," "dreariness," "unnerved") and stimulates
his imagination ("dream," "fancies") (138-39). Just as the narrator attempts to
consider the house's character as an "arrangement," he singles out the "details
of the picture" in order to describe "the character of [Roderick Usher's] face."
(139, 142). Not only are the details similar to those of the house (the "web-like"
(142) hair recalls the "fine tangled web-work" (141), the "lustre" of the "liquid"
(142) eye the "unruffled lustre" (139) of the tarn), but the face itself is reified
(Roderick's nose, "of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril
unusual in similar formations" (142), is described in mineral terms), so that the
narrator concludes his description by admitting that he "could not, even with
effort, connect [Roderick Usher's face's] Arabesque expression with any idea
of simple humanity."42 In so doing, the narrator has entirely dehumanized the
human subject, turning him into an object of scientific and aesthetic study.

Moreover, all the narrator's attempts at analysis ultimately fail43 to answer the
question, "what was it that so unnerved [him] in the contemplation of the House
of Usher?" (138). And by extension, I would argue, fail to answer the questions
of what it was that so unnerved him in the contemplation of Roderick Usher or in
listening to his music. The lack of an origin for the aesthetics of contamination
points at the lack of an origin for the aesthetic effect which remains "a mystery all

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 insoluble" (138).
talks of "the m
caused by the "in
"unaccountable"
cannot be repr
with the narrat
the house or its
suggests there
would give a r
Usher's "physic
"bewildered" by
the terms, and
Perhaps. In any
Usher's descript
could also have
aesthetics. In an
of origin and cau
from being fasc

The Usher cont

Usher's supers
books - the boo
existence of the
character of ph
the narrator m
of "our" heralds
"condition" (15
influence, so tha
reading to him,
his sanity. Sign
that occurs diege
breath" (155) re
("echo," "shriek
not a mise en ab
"a cruder form
stories can be."4
above. The tale thus thematizes the sort of fears readers can nurture when
consuming an "unhealthy" piece of fiction, that fiction contaminate reality,45 a
theme Louise J. Kaplan locates in the tale's epigraph which warns "of a potential

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30 The "Unhealthy"

dissolution of the borders bet

reaches a similar conclusion whe
any reader exposed to a perver
the real, the imagination (fancy
that it is the context of its read
to the narrator, more than the
that, in the diegesis, it is reality
suggesting that aesthetic effect ca
part on chance. What Rachel Po
theory about poetry seems equ
aesthetics of contamination are
of the House of Usher," like th
remains "obscure."48

This thematization of aesthetic

The "unhealthy" work of art is
subject and is believed to have
reception of art would be, then
if the aesthetic effect or respon
cannot. Analysis of the "unheal
than clinical signs. If these sign
to recall Lacan's argument that t
other words, it is all a question
Usher" is all a question of the n
never revealing the origin of t
presence being felt only in its e
of signifiers, so to speak, so tha
century rationalist, attempts to
means making them matter throu
analyzing this text in the cultu
only draw attention to the contam
the signs of contamination whic
the disease at the heart of Poe'
Poe, the spider, "the real master
reveling in his perfect plot and

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 Notes

This essay was suggested to me in part by Claire Maniez. I'd like to thank Mark
Niemeyer for his time and advice, Marc Amfreville for pointing the way to Claude
Richard's essay, and the Edgar Allan Poe Review readers for their comments. All
contributed to significantly ameliorate this essay.

1. David Roche, U Imagination malsaine: Russell Banks , Raymond Carver, David

Cronenberg, Bret Easton Ellis, David Lynch. (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2008), 7-12. Further
references will be noted parenthetically.

2. Gerard Genette, Figures III. (Paris: Seuil, 1972), 56.

3. Genette 35-54.

4. Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977,
1978), 3.

5. Sontag, 6.

6. Edward Hungerford, "Poe and Phrenology." American Literature 2, 3 (Nov 1930),

209-31.

7. Brett Zimmerman, "Sensibility, Phrenology, and The Fall of the House of Usher.'"
The Edgar Allan Poe Review VIII, 1 (Spring 2007), 53. Further references will be noted
parenthetically.

8. David W. Butler, "Usher's Hypochondriasis: Mental Alienation and Romantic Idealism

in Poe's Gothic Tales." American Literature 48, 1 (March 1976), 1.

9. Poe does play on "[t]he romantic view . . . that illness exacerbates consciousness"
(Sontag 36).

10. Sontag, 5.

11. Sontag, 11.

12. Lyle H. Kendall, "The Vampire Motif in The Fall of the House of Usher.'" College
English 24, 6 (March 1963), 450-53.

13. J. O. Bailey, "What Happens in The Fall of the House of Usher'?" American
Literature 35, 4 (January 1964), 445-66.

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32 The "Unhealthy"

14. Claude Richard, "La Chute de la

Michel Gresset, Philippe Jaworski
Further references will be noted p

15. Richard Wilbur, "The House of

Robert Regan. (Englewood Cliffs,

16. Daniel Hoffman, "'The Fall of t

Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. (Garden

17. Scott Peeples, "Poe's Constructi

The Cambridge Companion to Edgar
University Press, 2002.), 186. Furth

18. Walter Evans, "The Fall of th

Studies in Short Fiction 14 (1977),

19. Evans, 141.

20. Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of t

Tales, Essays and Reviews. Ed. D
Books, 1986), 141. Further referen
noted parenthetically.

21. The verb "pervade" is used three

the narrator's spirit (138, 142), onc

22. David Butler, 8.

23. There are nine occurrences of

five of the root "imagina-" (two o
and one of "morale." One could
"morale" in order to have a secon
would be necessary to determine h
is essentially based on the definiti
Reader's Encyclopedia , the distinc
early- 19th century romanticism, n
Poe, "fancy" is synonymous with
la maison d' Usher" 100).

24. Peeples, 180. Beverley R. Volosh

of Usher expresses or reflects every
of Usher.'" Studies in Short Fiction

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 25. George Cang
Quadrige, 2003),

26. Canguilhem,
n'ait d'abord ap
occupe, c' est le

27. Judith Butl

York and London

28. Jacques Lacan

(Paris: Seuil, 19

29. This is what l

often used in a m
body having been
as such (Roche,

30. Rachel Polon

Edgar Allan Poe
2002), 44.

31. Polonsky, 54.

32. Peeples, 180-2.

33. There are three occurrences of "horror" (143, 150, 152), seven of "terror" (140,
143, 144, 151, 152, 155, 157), two of "fear" (144, 154); four occurrences of "malady"
(139, 143, 145, 150), two of "illness" (139, 144), "sick" (138, 156) and "disease" (145,
151); two occurrences of "emaciated": first to describe Roderick's body (145), then
Madeline's body (157); three occurrences of "unnerved": used with the house (138),
by Roderick to describe his "condition" (144), by the narrator when he believes fiction
has become reality at the end (156); three instances of "dread-": Roderick Usher talking
about the future (143), the narrator's response to Madeline (144) and the noise in the
tale the narrator reads (155); two occurrences of "melancholy": for the house (138),
then for Roderick Usher (145); four occurrences of "disorder": Roderick's mental state
(139, 151, 153), his "fancy" (149); two occurrences of "display": the Usher family's
production of art (139) and the "family evil" Roderick believes he suffers from (143);
seven occurrences of "gloom": the narrator's response to the house (138), the house
from the outside (139) and the inside (142, 151), notably the furniture (152), Roderick
Usher's behavior (144) and mind (145); three occurrences of "lustre": the tarn (Poe,
139), Roderick Usher's eye (142) and his "ideality" (145); eight occurrences of "air":
the sky above the house (140), a vault the narrator compares the house to (141), the

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34 The "Unhealthy"

inside of the house (142), Roderick

kingdom of Roderick's song (147),
"chilling" air which could cause h
narrator takes to be Roderick's res
of "glimpse": the house (138), Mad
(153); two occurrences of "view"
helping Roderick get better (139);
(138, 139) and inside (142); two
paintings (146); two occurrences
seven occurrences of "ghast-": the
151) and his painting (146), the m
of the strange phenomena around
at the end of the story (157); fou
the house (138, 140) and to Rode
to the books they read (149); five
Roderick Usher's appearance (142)
(151); seven occurrences of "influe
the house over Roderick Usher (14
Usher (149), of Roderick Usher's su
on the narrator (152); twelve occu
letter (139), the architecture of th
(145, 146), the books Usher reads
the narrator takes to be Roderick
narrator's response to the sounds h
and the moon which appears after
"character": of the house (140), of
and "features" (142), of the Lady
the narrator's occupations (145), o
Roderick's idea that the inanimate
of the sound from the tale the nar

34. Richard studies the "excess" of

letter that kills," in his book, Lett

35. The word "decay" is used four

with the house; "dead" and "death

36. Peeples, 182. Scott Peeples is

Ketterer's " 'Shudder': A signature
Resources for American Literary
Encrypted but Persistent' : The G
Usher.'" Studies in American Ficti

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 37. Peeples, 179.

38. Hoffman, 320

39. C. T. Walters
Design." The Edg

40. Ronald Biegan

American Literat

41. Peeples, 183.

42. Peeples, 143.

painter/sculpter
suggests comple
American Herita
and refers to an
are embedded am
the complexity o
which Usher's pe
ornate architectu
in 'The Fall of th
Silverman. (Camb

43. Richard, "La

44. Peeples, 185.

45. Jean-Marie S
(Paris: Seuil, 199

46. Kaplan, 48.

47. Richard, "La Chute de la maison d'Usher," 113.

48. Polonsky, 52.

49. Peeples, 186, 184.

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