Behind A Mask & The Fall of the House of Usher

Behind A MaskIt came to my attention that Louisa May Alcott was, in my opinion, trying to make a statement with her book "Behind A Mask." Jean Muir was a rebellious governess that was on a quest for comfort, or what I would call security, in the male dominated world that she was living in. She was deceiving at times making others believe she was nothing but an innocent nineteen year old girl with no family, and was from Scotch decent. We soon found out that those were all lies. I believe that her actions created an important irony between her and the other characters because there is most definitely a difference between what seems to be true and what is true in Jean's identity. It may even be situational irony in some sense, due to the fact that    her actions symbolize a paradigm shift in the role expectations of a female of her age and status. At first, I didn't want to pick this book up because of how thick it is, but after reading it, my opinion has changed.

The Fall of the House of Usher

Edgar Allen Poe starts this short story out with a very gloomy mood with his description of the decaying trees and swamp-like ponds surrounding an old house in which the narrator, who remains unnamed, is approaching. The old house belonged to Roderick Usher, who later dies of fear when his twin sister comes back from the dead to attack her twin brother. Many gothic elements were, of course, easily identifiable. The dreary landscape, the house's evil atmosphere, and the fact that the house was obviously haunted were all easy for me to identify as gothic elements in this short story. What I felt really caught my attention and spoke to me was that the house, to me, seemed alive. It's evil essense and the many gothic elements that filled its description sparked the fear of both the reader and the characters within the story. At the end of the story the house crumbles when the narrator escapes, and it was almost as if it was waiting to fall at that very second for a reason. In my opinion, Roderick and his twin sister were the same person. They live together and they die together. Madeline made sure that Roderick would suffer the same pain that she did. In theory, I believe that the house represented madeline. If she was going down, her twin brother would go down with her. The house took them both down together as a result.