Short Story:

The Fall of the House of Usher

Edgar Allan Poe

Film:
The Shining
1980
 Basis of Comparison

I chose to compareThe Fall of the House of

Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe, and the 1980s
film, The Shining, because they both share
the same theme: isolation.
 The Fall of the House of
Usher

Main Characters:
Narrator- The narrator never had a name, but was childhood
friends with Roderick Usher. He goes to the Usher house to
help Roderick, who was claiming to be physically sick.
Usher twins- Roderick Usher, and his twin sister Madeline
Usher were the last two living of the Usher family. The family
never branched out to keep the family name around.
Roderick throughout the story becomes more and more, as
what the reader could describe, mentally ill.
The Fall of the House of
Usher
Conflicts:
Internal conflicts- The narrator wants to help
his friend, but his friends illness, and the way
his home looks creates a conflict in the
narrators mind.
There is also an internal conflict between the
narrator and his friend. Both of them have
drastically changed since childhood, and so
neither of them knew who their old friends had
really become.
The Fall of the House of
Usher
Plot:
This short story written by Edgar Allan Poe.
The story only has three characters: the
narrator, who never gets a name, Roderick
Usher, and his twin sister, Madeline Usher.
The story starts off with the narrator riding up
to a house on horseback that he describes as
dark and dull. Roderick Usher, the man living
in the house, sent him a letter saying that he
needed company. As the narrator enters the
house, he describes walking through many
dark hallways looking for Roderick.
The Fall of the House of
Usher
Plot (cont.)
When he finds Roderick, he describes him as pale,
and less energetic than he ever was. Roderick tells
the narrator that he is suffering from fear, that hes
afraid of his house. His twin sister, Madeline, has
become sick with catalepsy, or the loss of control of
the limbs in your body. The narrator spends many
days trying to cheer up his old childhood friend.
Eventually, Madeline dies. Roderick decides to bury
her in the tombs under the house, so that the doctors
will not try to take her body for scientific research.
The Fall of the House of
Usher
Plot (cont.)
One night, neither characters could sleep, so the
narrator begins reading Roderick a story. As hes
reading, he begins hearing noises that correspond
with the story. Roderick claims that hes been
hearing these noises ever since they buried
Madeline.
The wind blows open, and Madeline is standing
behind the door. She is bloody from the struggle of
getting out alive. As shes dying, she attacks
Roderick. Roderick dies from fear, and the narrator
runs away from the house. As the narrator leaves,
the house collapses behind him.
 The Shining

Throughout the plot summary, the shine will

be referred to a lot.
The shine is actually the ability to
communicate telepathically with other who
share this ability.
 The Shining
Main Characters:
Jack Torrance- Jack is the husband of Wendy Torrance, and
the father of Danny Torrance. Jack is a writer, and a
recovering alcoholic who is asked to watch over the
Overlook Hotel during the winter. He eventually goes
insane due to cabin fever, and attempts to murder his
family.
Danny Torrance- Danny is the son of Jack and Wendy who
goes with his family to help watch over the Overlook Hotel.
He soon discovers from a hotel chef while receiving a tour
that he has a special ability which is know as shining. He
basically has the ability to communicate telepathically with
others who have this special ability.
 The Shining
Main Characters:
Mrs. Wendy Torrance- Mrs. Torrance is the wife of Jack
Torrance. She is a very loving and caring wife and mother. She
displays these characteristics throughout the movie a number
of times. She is always checking up on her husband and son
to make sure they are ok.
Dick Hallorann- Mr. Hallorann was the chef at the Overlook
Hotel during the hotels open season. While he was showing
Mrs. Torrance around the kitchen with Danny, he
telepathically asks Danny if he wants ice-cream, sparking a
conversation about how they both share the same power.
The Shining
Conflicts:

Jack Torrance begins to develop cabin fever

and goes insane. His cabin fever causes him
to attempt to kill his family.
The Shining
Plot:
Jack Torrance receives a job interview for the
Overlook Hotel as a winter caretaker, which must
close from November to May due to heavy snow
falling every winter. He plans on using this as a
quiet time to sit and work on writing. While in the
interview, the manager tells him about the last
caretaker, who developed cabin fever, and went
insane. Right after going insane, the man killed his
wife, two daughters, and then killed himself. Mr.
Torrance tells the manager that he is not worried,
that he is positive he will be able to maintain his
sanity and be able to care for the hotel while
working on his writing.
The Shining
Plot: (cont.)
Jack receives a job as a caretaker at the Overlook
Hotel in the mountains, which closes down during the
winter due to terrible snow storms.
On the last day the hotel was open, the family was
given a tour of the hotel. Mr. Hallorann, the chef, is
giving Mrs. Torrance and Danny a tour of the large
hotel kitchen, and discovers that Danny shares the
same telepathy power that he has. This is when Danny
is offered ice-cream telepathically. Danny then begins
to ask questions about the hotel, and then room 237.
Room 237 is the room that the previous caretaker had
stacked the dead bodies in. Danny is warned to stay
out of that room.
The Shining
Plot: (cont.)
Danny and his mother continue exploring the hotel,
as Jacks writing still has not gone anywhere after a
month. There is a huge hedge maze that Danny and
his mother explore before the snow gets bad. Over
time, Jack begins to get very frustrated with his
writing. He begins to have random outbursts of
violence and screaming.
Wendy and Danny become more and more afraid of
Jack, as these random outbursts become to get
more and more violent, as well as more often.
Eventually Wendy becomes so scared that she
carries a bat with her when she goes to check on
him.
The Shining
Plot: (cont.)
One day Jack hits the peak, and goes on a
rampage. He attempts to attack Wendy. She
hits him with a bat and knocks him
unconscious. She drags him into the food
closet in the kitchen, and locks him in there.
When he escapes the closet, he chases them
down. Jack disconnects all phone line, and
radio networks from the hotel so that no one
can get in touch with them.
The Fall of the House of
Usher
Heros Journey:

Short Story- This story never shows the

narrator in his natural habitat.
Movie- Danny and his family are living
happily, and Dannys father is taking this job
so that he has time to work on his writing
career.
Short Story- The narrator receives a letter
from an old childhood friend requesting
company. There he gets on his horse and
heads over there.
Movie- Danny moves into the hotel for the
winter.
The narrator doesn't refuse the call, the story
does imply that he does debate on whether
or not to go inside.
Danny doesnt refuse the call, he goes
expecting a huge place that he can run and
play.
The narrator doesnt meet anyone. Instead,
he is the mentor to his friend.

Danny meets the head chef, who he finds out

also has this telepathy power. The chef then
tells him about the hotel, and what not to do.
The narrator enters the dark house looking
for his friend.
The hotel closes, and Danny and his family
are left there for the winter.
The narrator finds that his friend has
drastically changed, but he is still a friend.
Danny begins to bond with his mother, and
drift from his father.
The narrator begins to adjust to helping his
insane friend.
Danny begins to adjust to being on his own,
and doing whatever he wants.
The narrator helps bury his friends sister
under the house. At this point, the friend
becomes even more insane like. The sister
then comes back and kills her brother.
At this point, Danny is trying to escape death
with his mother after his father has
developed cabin fever and gone insane.
The narrator escapes the house, and the
house crumbles down after he gets out.
Danny escapes death, and leaves his father
to die in the snow.
After the characters in both the story and
movie escape death, they both end. I assume
they all went back to normal life, with some
few obvious adjustments.
 Works Cited

Poe, Edgar. The Fall of the House of Usher.

Prentice Hall Literature Florida The
American Experience.
Ed. Grant Wiggins. Upper
Saddle River: Pearson, 2010. 293-310
The Shining. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack
Nicholson. Warner Home Video, 2010. DVD.