Usher II

1. Ashley Fuller Tiffany Showerman KC Cataldi Jonathan Hardesty Byron Keck Usher II

2. Overview • Summary • Themes • Connection between books • Significance • Conclusion

3. Summary • Players: • Investigators of moral climate • Dismantlers • Political friends • House of Usher • murder

4. Summary (cont.)

5. Themes • Censorship • Death • Literal • Metaphorical • Death is like the censorship of ideas • Idea of murdering fantasy • censorship • Fantasy and dark humor • Quoting Poe and the Grimm brothers

6. Connections “the fall of the house of usher” “The Cask of amontillado” Stendahl takes Garrett down into the cellar “Ignorance is fatal” Locks him in an alcove • Characterization of the house • It disappears at the end

7. Significant Ideas • Technology and creativity is used to kill science • Investigator of moral climates control literature • “All the beautiful literary lies and flights of fancy must be shot in mid-air.” • Politics • “…with a screw tightened here and bolt fastened there, a push a pull a yank, art and literature were like a great twine of taffy strung about.”

8. Significant Ideas (cont.) • Communism • censorship • Poe’s “House of Usher” • “The House of Usher is open for business.” • Society for the prevention of fantasy • Science is taking over literature • “What eminent sociologist! What clever psychologists! What tremendously important politicians, bacteriologists, and neurologists!”

9. Significant Ideas (cont.) • Dismantlers • Irony of the story against technology and science • “My lord, you have an imagination, haven’t you?”

10. Conclusion • Murder of fantasy • censorship • Science taking over literature • Literature destroys science • creativity • “The Fall of the House of Usher” • “The Cask of Amontillado”