A Comparison Of Alfred Hitchcock And Edgar Allan Poe
Submitted by freefortermpapers on 06/24/2008 03:00 PM
- Category: American History
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A Comparison Of Alfred Hitchcock And Edgar Allan Poe
Fear, terror and suspense are the most vivid emotions created by
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Poe's stories and by Hitchcock's films. Several themes are common to both:
the madness that exists in the world, the paranoia caused by isolation
which guides people's actions, the conflict between appearance and reality
along with the double aspect of the human nature, and the power of the dead
over the living. Not only the themes are similar in both men's work but
also the details through which a story is written or shown. The similar
themes and narrative techniques can be seen clearly in "The Fall of the
House of Usher" and in Psycho.
For both Poe and Hitchcock, madness exists in the world. "The Fall
of the House of Usher" and Psycho are two very similar studies in madness.
Roderick Usher and Norman Bates are both insane. They have many common
traits although they are also quite different. They are victims of their
fears and their obsessions. Norman who seems agreeable and shy is, in
reality, a homicidal maniac who has committed matricide. He suffers from
schizophrenia he acts as both himself and his dead mother. Roderick
Usher appears strange from the beginning, almost ghost-like, with his
"cadaverousness of complexion" however, he is not a murderer. He suffers
from a mental disorder which makes him obsessed with fear: fear of the
past, of the house, of the dead. He finally dies, "victim to the terrors
he had anticipated."
The way in which madness is projected in both stories is quite
similar as well. The short story and the movie both take place in a dark
and gloomy house, a "ghostly house" "a mansion of doom," writes Poe. In
both houses there is the presence of a mysterious woman. For Poe, the
woman is Roderick Usher's sister Madeline who suffers from an undefined
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