In “A Rose for Emily” Faulkner presents the idea of an affect as a cause of evil and a murder as its effect, whereas in “The Fall of the House of Usher” Poe depicts self-suggestion as a source of evil and Roderick`s burying Madeline while she is still alive, which can be considered a homicide attempt, as an effect.
Faulkner`s short story treats of a synopsis-like story of Emily Grier, a woman who lived her last years as a hermit in her own house. It all begins with her funeral, but later flashes back into bright moments of her lifetime, including the one when her father died and later on of the man she dated with, Homer Barron, disappearance. Afterwards, we are brought back to the time when Emily is dead and her neighbors find out that Homer has been lying dead in her bad for all those years she lived as a hermit. Obviously, Emily was the one to kill him.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” starts up with our unnamed narrator to return to the place he spent his childhood at and to meet and old friend of his – Roderick Usher. It turns out that Roderick has been feeling sick lately, mostly perpetually being afraid of something and altogether facing emotional problems because of his twin-sister Madeline unstable health condition and her probable death. That is what actually happens, but Usher does not want to bury her right away, so she stays in the family tomb. Later on we find out that in reality Emily did not die – this is what Roderick confesses – “put her living in the tomb”. Afterwards Madeline appears angry with Roderick and they both die. And our nameless narrator escapes the house, watching it falling apart.
In their narrations Faulkner and Poe created characters with certain similarities. First of all, both Emily and Roderick are lonely. Yes, at the beginning of the short story Madeline is still alive, but this fact does not make the main character less lonely than he already is. What unites these narrations and what is obvious from the first look is the importance of the houses they live in. In Emily`s case, this is a place for the story`s culmination, actually as in the story of Ushers, but in the last example, house is even personificated having “eye-like” windows. Observing the matter of cause and effect, in case of Roderick this might be one of the cause`s factors, meaning that the environment he used to spend his time at, was overwhelmed with a sinister atmosphere, which only stimulated the development of main hero`s hypochondria. Nevertheless, it seems to be appropriate to define the main theme of both stories as an ‘evil’. In both cases it`s occurrence is presented with a homicide and one`s attempt. But, even including the fact that stories might look alike, consequences of main heroes` actions were caused by different accidents, and, methods used to reveal these causes were different in both stories. In …