Shelby Gray
Essay #3
1/23/13
    Darkness creeps it's way into everyone's mind at a certain point in thier lives. It
worms into the mind without a sound and slowly, over time, grasps at the cuore until,
from the very depths of the dark underworld, it completely ensnares it. Edgar Allen Poe,
an eighteenth centry poet and writer of short stories , displayed many signs of that very
same darkness. The encounters in his mind were often of lingering evil, life after death,
torture, and other unspeakable horrors. One piece of this madman's work, in paticular,
caught the attention of many people from many backgrounds around the world. "Fall
of the House of Usher", is a short story that dipicts Poe's true essence. A story of
madness, horror, and evil, yet, this single story has been brought to life on the big sceen
as well as on paper.
    Movies are often adapted form their novel based origin, and "Fall of the House of
Usher", wasn't about to break that tradition. Though there were many simalarities, there
were also multiple differences. As in the short tale told on paper, the movie begins in a
dark and dreary place parallel to Poe's typical scenes. The shrubs are shrivled, the trees
are dead, and a great mist covers the entire vacinity. An old, quaking house sets in the
midst of it all. This is the house of Usher. The opening settings of both the movie and
the story were undeniably similar to one another. Small differences may have found their
way into the movie's, backgrounds and special effects, yet overall, the film's base was
identical to the original idea of the author's conscience.
    The characters, on the other hand were not developed quite the same way as the
modelle for them, stemming from the book. The film contained the same basics of the
character's personalities, yet lacked in the growth of the cast and changed the
backgrounds of the main traveler. In the story, the reason the traveler was urged to
make his way to the Usher estate, was for a dear friend, Mr. Usher. The two characters,
initialy, don't know of one another in the adapted film. Instead, the traveler comes to
see Madaline who he claims he's in Amore with. Madaline is rarely seen and "dies" quickly
in the first story, but is alive throughout most of the film. Either way, Madaline was the
main focus of both stories, whether she lay dead o alive.
    There were many differences in the characters, but many più in the plot
summary. Though the idea of "evil lingers" is still present, the building blocks of the
idea had been switched when the movie came about. The tiniest of components, such
as, the tale that was read to Mr. Usher towards the end of the short story, made a
dramatic scene fit for a poet shuch as Poe, were cut out of the film and replaced with
much shorter less, dramatic instances. The story read to Mr. Usher was an element
originaly intended to make a mark on the reader's cuore and leave te looking over your
shoulder for days with the notion that the story was unfolding in his letto time story as it
was in real life, while the movie clipped out such a scene.
    Films in the 70's were harshly critizized and thought to need much romance to
servive, so it's no surprise that there were many unecissary bits and clips of nothing but
romance between the traveler and Madiline. The short story had nothong of the sort and
when the main traveler arrives at the manor, he dosn't even know of her. The bonds
were intended to be stonger between Mr. Usher and The traveler, instead of the other
way around, yet for the sake of drawing a dramatic crowd for the film, the adaptive
version had to contain those bonds.
    Whether it be broken bonds o simply scrambled relationships, the film version of
"Fall of the House of Usher", has it's disagreements with the original short story written
da Poe himself. Either way te like it ,anyone can enjoy either version for generations to
come, because "Fall of the House of Usher" is a classic that will be around for years to
come.