297: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Fall of the House of Usher"

Summary

Podcast Summary

Classical Stuff You Should Know
Episode 297: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Fall of the House of Usher"
Released: February 24, 2026
Hosts: A.J. Hanenburg, Graeme Donaldson, Thomas Magbee

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Overview:

In this episode, the hosts dive into the life and works of Edgar Allan Poe, with a focus on two of his most famous short stories: "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Fall of the House of Usher." They explore Poe’s tumultuous biography, the gothic and psychological elements of his fiction, and discuss the significance and symbolism in these classic tales. The conversation examines how Poe’s personal misfortunes influenced his writing, debates on the educational value of dark literature, and touches on themes such as death, ancestry, wealth, and the fear of the unknown.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Poe’s Biography and Reputation

• Early Life & Education

  • Born in Boston, 1809, orphaned young (03:09).
  • Raised by the Allan family in Richmond, Virginia; spent school years in the UK (03:49).
  • Describes chaotic and lax environment at University of Virginia (04:01–05:08).

• Life Struggles

  • Suffered estrangement from benefactor John Allan due to gambling debts (05:35).
  • Engaged, but fiancée married another during his troubles (06:03).
  • Joined the US military, pursued West Point, but got himself court-martialed to leave (07:31).

• Career and Marriage

  • Early publications failed to gain attention.
  • Married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia, a detail both acknowledged and critiqued (09:45).

• Addiction & Death

  • Common rumors about drug addiction, notably cocaine, but evidence is thin; alcohol and possible opium use are documented (02:01, 14:27).
  • Poe’s death remains mysterious; last words reportedly, "Lord help my poor soul" (10:18–11:17).

2. Notorious Obituaries and Reputation After Death

• Hated in Death: An opponent wrote Poe’s obituary and a widely circulated, famously scathing biography (11:17–12:05).

  • Quote:
    “Edgar Allan Poe is dead... This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.” (11:28, Graham)

• Discussion of Reputation:

  • The hosts marvel and joke about the poetic justice (or injustice) of being roasted in one’s obituary (12:05).

3. Poe’s Drug and Alcohol Use

• Clarified Myths:
  • Evidence that Poe had bouts of heavy drinking but was not a constant alcoholic; stories of cocaine use are mostly apocryphal (14:27).
  • Direct:
    “You can't write a half a page sentence, which he did pretty routinely, when you were absolutely blitzed on alcohol.” (13:05, Graham)

4. Discussion of Poe’s Literary Reputation and Impact

• First Detective Story:
  • "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" as the first detective story in English (15:47).
• Recurring Themes:
  • Focus on death, ancestral guilt, horror of the unknown, and often, the early or tragic death of women (09:56–10:18, 53:53).
• Personal Connection:
  • Graham relates to Poe as a lover of horror stories and films (02:01).

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Deep Dives into Poe’s Short Stories

5. "The Masque of the Red Death"

Plot Recap:

• Set during a deadly, blood-themed plague ("Red Death") that kills within thirty minutes (17:00–18:03, Graham).
• Prince Prospero, with 1,000 wealthy friends, seals themselves in an abbey to party in isolation (18:14).
• Description of the masquerade: Seven color-themed, labyrinthine rooms, ending in a black room with a ghastly clock (18:55–23:28).
  • Most partygoers avoid the black room, unnerved by its atmosphere and the chiming clock.

Symbolism:

• Rooms and Colors:

  • Possible representation of the stages of life, ending in death (24:35–29:39).
  • East-to-west layout may symbolize life’s journey (29:39).
  • Clock is a clear memento mori, a reminder of mortality (30:20).

• Death is Inescapable:

  • A mysterious guest, dressed as a red death victim, appears; as Prospero confronts him in the black room, all die as the plague manifests physically (25:44–27:57).
  • Quote:
    “He had come like a thief in the night, and one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel and died each in the despairing posture of his fall.” (27:52, Graham reads Poe).

• Interpretations:

  • Wealth does not exempt anyone from death; attempting to seal out mortality is futile (31:12–32:11).
  • There is a satisfaction in seeing the prideful wealthy punished by the Red Death (32:11, AJ).

6. "The Fall of the House of Usher"

Plot Recap:

• Narrator arrives at the decrepit, unsettling Usher house, invited by old friend Roderick Usher (32:50).
• House and family are both in decline—a "single-family vine" (33:14).
• Roderick suffers from acute sensory disorders; only his twin sister, Madeline, remains (35:13–36:56).
• Madeline falls ill and seemingly dies; she’s entombed in an underground vault below the narrator's room (38:26–40:45).
• During a storm, phenomena in the house mirror the story the narrator reads aloud; Madeline was buried alive and returns, dying as she falls on Roderick who also perishes. The narrator flees as the house splits and collapses into the lake (47:53–50:02).

Themes and Analysis:

• Atmosphere:

  • Poe excels at a “fear of the numinous,” an unnamable ancestral or cosmic horror (53:57).
  • The house symbolizes both the family line and the physical decay—fall of both together (50:36–50:45).

• Possible Explanations:

  • Hosts joke (and half-seriously suggest) that the Ushers suffered from psychological distress caused by a literal gas leak (42:24–42:31).

• Recurring Motifs:

  • Premature burial, fear, ancestral sins, unstoppable decline (50:05, 53:09).
  • Grim determinism: “...ancestral things that sort of follow people around and then eventually spring on you.” (53:09, Thomas).

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On the Red Death’s Efficiency:
  “If we're talking about an efficiency of a disease, that's a bad deal for the Red Death.” (18:05, Graham)

• Color Symbolism Debate:
  “Why does it have to mean something? It's just cool colors." (29:30, AJ)
  “The chime is memento mori, probably… Once you reach the last room, you're toast.” (30:23, Graham)

• Poe’s Writing Style:
  “He uses a lot of laden language about horror.…He’s really good at talking about the feel, the atmosphere, and it builds atmosphere really well.” (52:38, Graham)

• On Literature’s Value:
  “Why does there have to be [redemption]? That isn't the only experience of human life.” (57:04, Graham)
  “If the only reason you go to literature is to have… someone being saved or redeemed… that's just not what happens.” (57:04, Graham)

• Classic Poe Obituary Burn:
  “Edgar Allan Poe is dead... This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.” (11:28, Graham)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:01] – Poe's background, rumors about addiction
• [03:09] – Early life and adoption by the Allans
• [05:35] – College years, gambling, estrangement
• [07:31] – Military service and publishing beginnings
• [09:45] – Marriage to Virginia, early publication failures
• [10:18–11:17] – Wife’s death and Poe’s own mysterious demise
• [14:27] – Myths around Poe’s drug use clarified
• [15:47] – Poe invents the detective story
• [17:00–32:11] – "The Masque of the Red Death": summary, symbolism, interpretations, debate on meaning
• [32:50–53:09] – "The Fall of the House of Usher": summary, atmospheric analysis, interpretation of horrors
• [53:53–56:37] – The role of ancestral guilt, nature's retribution, and the unknown in Poe & Lovecraft
• [57:04–60:59] – Discussion: Is literature valuable only if "redeeming"? Is horror/catharsis necessary?

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Tone & Banter

The hosts maintain a witty, irreverent, but thoughtful tone throughout, frequently poking fun at one another, riffing on literary themes, and making light of Poe’s reputation while expressing genuine admiration for his craft. They highlight the persistent sense of unease, inevitability, and inherited doom in Poe’s stories, and debate the purpose of engaging with "bleak" literature, especially in an educational context.

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Conclusion

The episode provides an accessible yet nuanced introduction to Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous gothic stories. The hosts’ close reading, humor, and willingness to reflect on deeper literary and educational questions, make this episode both entertaining and intellectually rewarding—whether you’re new to Poe or a longtime fan.

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Transcript

[Thomas]

The loving, the home that I live in. You know what? You like Robbie Williams?

[Graham]

I'm wondering, like, how does it.

[AJ]

How's it relaxing?

[Thomas]

I just want to feel real love.

[Graham]

What are you talking about?

[AJ]

What are you. Because of Edgar Allan Poe?

[Thomas]

Yeah. Okay, so you said. You said. And I said. You said, I did this thing. And I said, oh, we've had a lot of living back then, since then. And then I was thinking, I got a lot of life running through my veins going to waste. I just want to feel real love.

[AJ]

Anyway, I'm so glad that you pressed record, so thank you, aj this has been a wonderful introduction.

[Thomas]

You ready to record?

[Graham]

No, no, it's recording.

[AJ]

We are recording.

[Graham]

It's definitely recording. I started it, like, mid song.

[AJ]

He moved very carefully and pressed the. But very quietly.

[Graham]

Quiet.

[AJ]

It was really good.

[Graham]

I've gotten really good at that, by the way, over the years of us.

[Thomas]

Can we have this be an Easter egg for the Patreon?

[Graham]

Oh, no. Oh, no. This is going to be the Easter egg.

[AJ]

This is the opening to the episode. Yeah. This is our very professional introduction.

[Graham]

Pretty convinced that, like, 18% of our listeners come here just for Donaldson songs.

[AJ]

Yes. Please confirm in the comments. Okay. This is classical stuff. You should know. This is Thomas Graham and A.J. that was our most incredible introduction yet. So you're welcome. And we are indeed talking about Edgar Allan Poe. And AJ I think you are leading this episode.

[Graham]

All right. I think I've done an epis on something Edgar Allan Poe wrote a long time ago.

[AJ]

I just said your name. I said our podcast. We're a podcast about classical stuff, like

[Graham]

cowering in shame over the.

[AJ]

Yeah, good. What else do you want?

[Graham]

Swallowing or cringe is such a good phrase.

[AJ]

I'm trying to see. So you think you did an episode on the writing of the Raven?

[Graham]

Okay, I don't know if it was a full. I think it was maybe one of those Covid episodes. Okay.

[AJ]

I think could have been. But you're talking about him again.

[Graham]

Yeah, so I'm talking about him again. I studied Poe in college. I took a whole class on Edgar Allan Poe. I read a lot of his work. It's pretty fun. I really enjoy Poe's work. And, you know, it's not surprising. I enjoy him. I'm also the member of the podcast who enjoys horror films. So he's, you know, not too far from genres that I am already a fan of. So I read a couple of short stories to give you today, and then I also am schooled a little bit on his background and I did a little research into his drug use and a few other things. So just because the most common thing when I hear Edgar Allen Poe is like, ooh, he did enough cocaine to kill a horse.

[AJ]

I didn't know that. Is that a thing?

[Graham]

Maybe I heard that in a movie a long time ago and it just sticks in my head. But I learned something that's kind of whenever I say Edgar Allen Poe, people are like, oh, he did cocaine.

[AJ]

Wow.

[Graham]

To be fair, everyone did cocaine back then.

[Thomas]

It was little boxes they carried it in.

[Graham]

Wait, what?

[AJ]

Really?

[Thomas]

Oh, yeah, it's called snuff.

[Graham]

There's a reason it's called Coca Cola because it had cocaine.

[AJ]

This was like common and widespread. People just. That's. But it must have been very small amounts is what I mean.

[Graham]

Yeah, yeah, I mean it's, you know, snuff boxes. Well, snuff is tobacco.

[AJ]

That's different, isn't it?

[Thomas]

I thought snuff was also cocaine.

[Graham]

I mean, I think.

[AJ]

Let's just explore this for the next hour. This is what I. The real episode.

[Graham]

I can talk a little bit about his drug use. So he was born in Boston on January 9th of 1809. He was the middle child. His father abandoned the family and his mom died a year later of tuberculosis while he was young. So at two years old, Poe was taken into the home of John Allen, who was a Richmond, sorry, a merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Never fully adopted by the family, but he did get his name from them and that's how he became Edgar Allan Poe. Right. Because he was born to the Poe's and then he was sort of half adopted by the Allans. He moved with that family to the United Kingdom in 1815 where he attended a grammar school in Irvine, Ayrshire. I'm definitely saying that wrong. You think so? Ayrshire. You think so? It's a little Scottish place.

[Thomas]

Maybe you nail it.

[Graham]

Ayrshire.

[Thomas]

Maybe you nail it.

[AJ]

I like that.

[Graham]

Maybe close. We're gonna see this in the comments.

[Thomas]

Probably pronounced like ear.

[AJ]

Just ignore all.

[Graham]

He went to Paris.

[AJ]

Yeah, yeah.

[Graham]

He joined this family in London in 1816 and then went to a boarding school at eight until 1817, after which he got into John Barnsby's Manor House School, which is north of London. They moved back to Virginia in 1829, so he spent a good chunk of his schooling over there in the UK. In 1825, the rich uncle of Mr. Allen died. So not Poe, but his adopted dad. Half adopted dad. And that guy inherited what is the current equivalent of about $21 million. Back then it was 750,000, with which he celebrated and bought a two story brick house. At this point, Edgar, our young Edgar, got engaged to a girl named Sarah Elmira Royster. And at that point, he was also accepted into the University of Virginia, which was a weird university established recently by Thomas Jefferson. And Thomas Jefferson put in strict rules about gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol, which were all generally ignored. And there was sort of a system of self government by the students. They got to choose their own studies. It was really chaotic. High dropout rates. So this is where he went.

[Thomas]

Would you buy a brick house if you won $21 million? Brick House?

[AJ]

I mean, you gotta have 21 million to buy a house in this economy, Am I right?

[Graham]

In this economy? Yeah.

[AJ]

It's like, of course the first thing you do is buy a house. Right? What else would you do?

[Graham]

I don't know.

[Thomas]

I'm just wondering. Maybe AJ doesn't want a house. Buy one of those cool vans you've always talked about.

[Graham]

Really nice rv. He would not.

[AJ]

Would you buy an RV first? That's crazy. Yeah.

[Graham]

Okay. So at that point, he started gambling a little bit. And Poe got estranged from Alan, his benefactor, over some gambling debts. Poe said he didn't have enough money for classes and books and housing at college. And so Alan sent some of the money. And Poe's debts still increased, so he didn't get a lot of money. He gave up after about a year at college and then went home to learn that his girl, Sarah Elmira Royster, had married another dude.

[AJ]

Whoa.

[Thomas]

Oh.

[Graham]

So he traveled to Boston in 1827.

[Thomas]

Shouldn't have been just gambling all college.

[AJ]

That's fair.

[Graham]

I know, but that's on him. But if I'm right, it was a year different.

[Thomas]

That's a long 365 days of neglect, my friend.

[AJ]

Yeah, that's not great.

[Graham]

Well, I guess he went in in 1820.

[Thomas]

Hey, where's your boyfriend? Oh, he's at college. What's he doing? Oh, he's in massive debt and he's being estranged from his, like, rich adopted family. Oh, wow. You picked a winner, girl. No, she's. Of course she's gonna marry somebody else.

[Graham]

Okay, fair enough.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Graham]

So he struggling with money and still kind of estranged from Mr. Allen, went into the military. He enlisted claiming he was 22. When he was only 18 years old, he served at Fort Independence in Boston. For five bucks a month, he published his first collection of poems. 50 copies were printed and it received zero attention. Nobody cared. He got posted to Fort Moultrie in South Carolina. He was promoted to artificer, which is the guy that makes artillery shells. And his monthly Pay doubled to 10 bucks a month. 10 bucks a month.

[AJ]

Good for him.

[Graham]

He served for two years and achieved the rank of sergeant major, which was the highest an enlisted man could at that position. Poe eventually revealed his real name to his commanding officer, and the commanding officer offered him an honorable discharge if Poe were to reconcile with Mr. Allen. So Poe wrote some letters and Allen ignored him completely. Eventually, Mr. Allen's wife died, and so he was a little softened by the death and agreed to support Poe's desire to go to West Point.

[Thomas]

So be an officer.

[Graham]

Yep. So Poe went to go stay with his widowed aunt after getting his appointment to West Point, which is where he met his cousin, his first cousin, Virginia Eliza. Clem. We'll come back into the story in a little bit.

[Thomas]

He went to marry his cousin.

[Graham]

I said she'd come back into the story. We'll see. He left for West Point in 1830, at which point he had a final kind of big knockdown, drag out argument with Allen and eventually was disowned by his adoptive family because Mr. Allen had been having extramarial affairs and he had just gotten remarried. And Poe didn't really like the lady or something, didn't like the marriage. And that caused their final sort of break between the two. Poe decided to leave West Point, where he decided to get himself court martialed because it was the fastest way out. So he pretty much stopped doing anything. He was tried for gross neglect of duty, disobedience of orders, for refusing to tend formations, classes and church. He pled not guilty with full knowledge that he was guilty, and he would be found guilty and therefore kicked out of West Point, which is exactly what happened. So he got booted out, left for New York, where he decided to publish more poetry. And all of his old sort of, you know, West Point buddies or regiment buddies helped to pitch in to pay for this thing. And this is where we get into his publishing career. Periodicals were growing and they were sort of popping up all over the place like daisies. Poe published in many of these, but he, the trouble was actually getting paid for any of the writing you did because they were all kind of, you know, little startup companies and you, you know, he had to keep on writing and keep on showing up at the door to finally get paid for his stuff. So he eventually got a job at a thing called the Literary messenger and was discharged for being drunk on the job. He returned to Baltimore and married his cousin Virginia Clem, who at the time, I think of that return was 13. He was 26. They got married when she was probably 14. Po got reinstated at the messenger after pleading for his job. He published a ton. And they. When he was married to Clem, they claimed that her age was 21. She was not 21. She was 13 or 14. Moved to Philadelphia and got lots of publishing jobs. He was promised an appointment at the US Customs House. He tried to get it, but when he was supposed to go for the interview, he declared that he was sick and didn't show up. And the guy at the interview thought that he missed it because he was drunk.

[AJ]

Yes.

[Graham]

Which he may have been. In 1842, Little Clem starts to show signs of tuberculosis. At this point is when he published the Raven, which is his first wild success. It was a massive success. He instantly became kind of a household name. But he only made about the current equivalent of $311 for its publication. I think they've had to pay him seven bucks.

[Thomas]

Wow.

[Graham]

He moved to the Bronx and Virginia died in 1847. So he was pretty distraught. They think a lot of the, you know, themes of losing of women or women going too young or like dying ladies in his book. It happens all the time in his. In his little things. Could have been sort of brought on by his wife. Poe was eventually found semi conscious in Baltimore and in great distress. He was not wearing his own clothing, but couldn't tell you how he had gotten into that position. He kept on rambling about a guy named Reynolds. And as he sort of dissolved, his final words were, lord help my poor soul. He died at 40. He was incredibly young, especially considering everything that he published before then. He was pretty prolific. All the medical records were lost, but newspapers claimed that congestion of the brain or cerebral inflammation was what did it. Which was often in the newspapers a euphemism for death from disreputable causes. His grave is in Baltimore.

[Thomas]

So like drinking yourself to death.

[Graham]

Yeah, drinking or drug use, something. The funny thing is that a literary opponent of his was the guy who did both his obituary and published his memoir and bibliography and biography. And this guy hated him. And so it like a quote from his obit, edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. This is another quote from. From his biography. He was a man who walked the streets in madness or melancholy. With lips moving in indistinct curses. Or with eyes upturned in passionate prayers. Never for Himself for he felt or professed to feel that he was already damned. And because there was no other biography available, it was widely circulated.

[Thomas]

So. Cool.

[AJ]

No.

[Thomas]

What don't you want it? Don't you want, like, a literary antagonist?

[AJ]

Like, roast you after you're dead? That's terrible.

[Graham]

It's kind of awesome. I'm with Graham on this one.

[AJ]

There's no way.

[Graham]

I mean, it meant that he was so incendiary that somebody had such a beef with him that they had to publish stuff after he died to make fun of him.

[AJ]

But ultimately, we don't know how he actually died.

[Graham]

Right.

[AJ]

We have this account. We have the euphemistic thing you just said. We have this really stilted biography, and then we don't know about the guy, probably because he doesn't have someone advocating to figure this stuff out.

[Graham]

Right. So I did look into his drug use. It's fairly clear that he did suffer from bouts of trouble with drinking. But the thing is, it wasn't like all the time. It was just sometimes he would get really, really drunk. And those were the times when he was very, very public. And so that kind of got around that he was sort of an alcoholic, but there were big times when he wasn't. And if you read any of his stories, you can't write a half a page sentence, which he did pretty routinely when you were absolutely blitzed on alcohol.

[Thomas]

Right.

[Graham]

You gotta be like you write Hemingway when you're blitzed on alcohol. Cause I'm pretty sure that's what Hemingway did.

[AJ]

That's why the sentences are so short.

[Graham]

It's partially because I think most of the time he was pretty drunk.

[Thomas]

That reminds me. That obituary reminds me of this awesome obituary that came out that someone found just a year ago. Let me read it. Obituary, Florence Flo Harrelson. Florence Flo Harrelson, 65, formerly of Chelsea, died on February 22, 2024. Without family by her side. Due to the burnt bridges and a wake of destruction left in her path, Florence did not want an obituary or anyone, including family, to know that she d died. That's because even in death, she wanted those she terrorized to still be living in fear, looking over their shoulders. So this isn't so much an obit, but more of a public service announcement.

[AJ]

Oh, wow.

[Graham]

That's real. Yeah. That's so fun. Not great.

[Thomas]

I bet Florence Harrelson wrote it herself. Anyway.

[Graham]

Are you guys gonna write your obit before you die?

[Thomas]

I have no idea. I don't know. Never thought about it.

[AJ]

Are you supposed to, like you're definitely

[Graham]

not supposed to, but I think I might leave it in my will just for kicks.

[AJ]

You're gonna make it funny? Like, is that why you say it's for kicks?

[Graham]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Okay.

[Graham]

Funny or amazing or claim a bunch of stuff I didn't actually do or that I had lots of enemies. You know, just stuff that's definitely not me.

[AJ]

Make your life more interesting. Yeah, I like it.

[Thomas]

Anyway. Sorry, I thought that was fun.

[Graham]

No, that's great. Love it. Okay, so he, he did have bouts with alcoholism. He probably took opium at some point. We know that he took at least one small dose when he was young. He may have struggled with it here and there. It does show up in his stories quite a bit. And it seems like it might be firsthand, you know, first hand knowledge, but again, it's. It's not a whole lot of knowledge. I actually didn't see anything about cocaine as I did all of my research. I'm just guessing that he did that sometimes. But a lot of those things seem to be fairly exaggerated and a lot of it seems to be based on hearsay. So could he have been like. He definitely drank. Did he drink all the time in an excess? Well, we don't really know. Was he on opium all the time? I also don't think we really know, or at least from my cursory research, that's sort of what I found out was that a lot of it was guesswork.

[AJ]

He dies right after his wife dies. Is that like, is that what's motivating?

[Graham]

Let's see. So she died in 1847. He was born in 1809. He would have died at 1849. So, yeah, like two years later. Poor guy.

[AJ]

Yeah.

[Graham]

Okay, so we are going to talk about two stories. The two stories I've chosen are fairly popular. There are other also popular stories. There's one called the Murders at. What's it called? Something Something. And it's widely regarded to be the first detective story in English.

[AJ]

The Rue Morgue.

[Graham]

The Rue Morgue, yep. So I might have to read those ones another day. I sort of found that out as I did more research. I had picked. I read the stories first and then was sort of researching Mr. Poe and found out that those, that story in particular was pretty famous. So if you're looking for something fun to read that is, you know, it's not the first detective story ever, but it is regarded to be the first one of that genre in English, which is kind of fun and interesting. Okay, I. We're gonna be reading the Mask of the Red Death and the fall of the House of Usher. Do you guys have any experience with these stories?

[Thomas]

I know Usher.

[Graham]

I did. Imagine. Can you.

[AJ]

Would you like to share something that you know about?

[Thomas]

I mean, he. He. Him and Little John did. Yeah.

[Graham]

Huh.

[AJ]

Yes.

[Thomas]

It's a big song.

[AJ]

Huge fan of their work. Yeah, naturally.

[Thomas]

Yep. Isn't House of. Didn't one of his album, Usher have an album called the House of Usher?

[Graham]

Oh, I hope so.

[Thomas]

Pretty sure he did.

[Graham]

What a literary deep cut for Usher.

[Thomas]

That is a literary deep cut for Usher.

[Graham]

Usher album, House of Usher. There is no album titled House of Usher. It could be. There is a band called the House of Usher.

[Thomas]

That's not it.

[Graham]

There's a soundtrack. Yep. Nope.

[Thomas]

So that's what I know about the

[Graham]

House of Usher is, is that there's no album called the House of Usher.

[Thomas]

That he is a. An R and B performer.

[Graham]

Okay, so the Mask of the Red Death is a. A story about a time of plague, which seems fun. I thought, you know, we kind of dovetail. Nice. With COVID Let me jump to it here.

[Thomas]

Six years ago, my friend.

[Graham]

Yeah, I know, but still, there's stuff to Stuff to talk about. House, the Red Death. Okay, I'm gonna read a little bit about the disease that's going on. At that time, the Red Death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal or so hideous. Oh, come on. Blood was its avatar and its seal. The redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains and sudden dizziness and then profuse bleeding at the pores with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim were the pest ban, which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour.

[AJ]

So you get it and you die

[Graham]

in half an hour.

[AJ]

That's tough.

[Graham]

Which really, I mean, if we're talking about an efficiency of a disease, that's a bad deal for the Red Death. That's not usually how a disease wants to be.

[AJ]

How is it supposed to spread if it's only 30 minutes?

[Graham]

Exactly. Yeah, right. This is usually really big. Plagues are the things that kind of take the span of weeks to kill you because they have plenty of time to spread violently to everybody else in the region. Anyway, this is getting around the country, and Prince Prospero, who is a, you know, a wealthy guy, decides to bring in his thousand closest rich friends into his little compound, and they bolt, and weld shut the doors so that there can be no people leaving. And no people getting in with their weird diseases. And he decides to keep all his friends and then furnish it well with, like, goodness and fun and good stuff. So here's a little quote. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers. And welded the bolts they resolved. To leave means neither of ingress or egress. To the sudden impulses of despair or frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions. The courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime, it was folly to grieve or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. So they hang out for a while. And then. The part that I think is the most important bit here, at least for me to kind of convey to you. Is about the layout of his sort of party area. It's fairly interesting. It's a bit of a long read. But it, I think, has most of the symbolism that's happening in the tale. So I'm gonna read it for you guys. So he's gonna throw a giant masquerade ball in this little area. It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven. An Imperial Suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista. While the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand. So that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different. As might have been expected from the duke's love of the bazaar. The apartments were so irregularly disposed. That the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every 20 or 30 yards. And at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left. In the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window. Looked out upon a closed corridor. Which perused the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass. Whose color varied in accordance with. With the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries. And here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange, the fifth with white, the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet. Tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy Folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only the color of the windows Failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet, a deep blood color. Now, in no one of the seven apartments Was there any lamp or candelabrum. Amid the profusion of golden ornaments. That lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite There stood, opposite to each window. A heavy tripod bearing a brazier of fire. And that projected its rays through the tinted glass. And so glaringly illuminated the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber. The effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood tinted panes. Was ghastly in the extreme. And produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered. That there were few of a company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all. It was in this apartment also that there stood against the western wall. A gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro With a dull, heavy, monotonous clang. And when the minute hand made the circuit of the face and the hour was to be stricken. There came from the brazen lungs of the clock. A sound which was clear and loud and. And deep and exceedingly musical. But of so peculiar a note and emphasis. That at each lapse of an hour. The musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause momentarily in their performance to hearken to the sound. And thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions. And there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company. And while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale. And the more aged and sedate. Passed their hands over their brows. As if confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased. A light laughter at once pervaded the assembly. The musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly. And made whispering vows, each to the other. That the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion. And then, after the lapse of 60 minutes. Which embraced 3000 and 600 seconds of the time that flies. There came yet another chiming of the clock. And then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before. But in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel.

[Thomas]

I don't want to Go. No blood demon room. What's going on in there?

[Graham]

I know. Who wants to go into the black room?

[Thomas]

How do you even, like, talk to your interior decorator when you're designing this place?

[Graham]

So apparently the prince has a lot of weird fancies. And in all of his designs. Yeah, all of his sort of weird designs and fancies was an element. There's a little bit of the grotesque. There's a little bit of the disconcerting. There's also the gay and revelry. It's supposed to encapsulate. Encapsulate a lot more to experience than just let's have a good time. There's a little bit of weirdness to it. Okay. Thoughts on the strange layout of these rooms? What do you read into those so far?

[AJ]

It's weird. I mean, I want to know who this Prospero guy is and why he's setting up the room this way. I was going to ask before. This is kind of the setup to the. Was it Decameron? What was the book you read during COVID The Decameron? Because it's like. But that one's like a bunch of friends go hang out in a villa for 40 days or whatever it is

[Graham]

to escape the plague.

[AJ]

Yeah, but it's not weird like this, right?

[Graham]

Yeah. They're just honestly trying to get out of range of anybody who might have the sickness, which. Not a terrible idea.

[AJ]

Not a terrible idea.

[Thomas]

The rooms are probably gonna be like symbols of modes of spending one's life or something. And then you all end up in

[AJ]

the leading to death room.

[Thomas]

Yeah, okay.

[Graham]

That's my guess. So the story's not actually much longer than this. They start their revel. Everyone's having a good time. Every once in a while, the clock chimes and everyone feels weird about it. Most everybody stays to the Easternish rooms, and nobody really goes into the black room, which also is not surprising.

[AJ]

What's the noise happening every hour?

[Graham]

It's just the chiming of this ebony clock in the black room.

[AJ]

It's just the chime. There's no nothing.

[Thomas]

But it makes them feel all weird.

[Graham]

Yeah, Everybody's kind of weird about it because it's so loud and long and weird musical that the whole orchestra has to stop playing.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Okay.

[Graham]

So they're all waltzing and having a good time in these really colorful rooms, when all of a sudden it's very clear that someone is in there that wasn't there prior. That they're. And they are dressed in this masquerade ball in the clothing of Someone who has the disease. Like, there's little. Because the blood comes out of the pores. It's a white shroud with all these little red flecks all over it as if it had been bleeding. And the face looks like a corpse. And it's alarming. And this figure is just sort of stalking through the rooms, not really touching anybody or talking to anybody. It's just being weird. Eventually.

[Thomas]

Get that guy out.

[AJ]

Yes.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Thomas]

Get the bouncer.

[Graham]

Everyone starts to feel weird about it. And so the prince says, let's get this guy out of here. And the. The demon sort of walks right up to him and then turns around and sort of walks away towards the black room. And everyone is like, what's going on? And so they chase him. Eventually, the prince catches up, I think, in the black room, grabs him, and at that moment seizes and falls down with the Red Death. So they, or like, accosts him, and they all rush to sort of grab this demon thing, and they find out that there was nobody in the clothes at all. Oh, that's the end of the story.

[AJ]

And that's the end?

[Graham]

Yeah, pretty much.

[Thomas]

Okay.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[AJ]

That's, like, exciting.

[Graham]

Yeah. It's kind of fun.

[AJ]

Is it? Are we gonna say. Yeah. Does it mean something more than just being a fun story?

[Graham]

Here, let me read the end. Okay. Prince Pronsborough, maddening with the rage and shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized them all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger and had approached in rapid impetuosity to within 3 or 4ft of the retreating figure. When the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer, there was a sharp cry and the dagger dropped, gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which instantly afterwards fell prostrate in death. The Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment and seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse like mask which had they had handled with so violent a rudeness untenanted by any tangible form, and now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night, and one by one dropped the revelers in the blood bedewed halls of their revel and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the Life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the Tripods expired. And darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion overall.

[Thomas]

All right, so the fancy house that they tried to get away from, the plague, didn't work.

[Graham]

No, it did not. They all died.

[Thomas]

They all died.

[AJ]

You sound unimpressed.

[Thomas]

Oh, I'm just. I mean, you can try all. I guess it's like you can try all you want to weld the door shut, but that's your time.

[AJ]

Yeah.

[Thomas]

The Red Death is gonna get you.

[Graham]

Any guesses at the rooms again?

[AJ]

I don't remember the colors. The last one is, like, black and is death, right?

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Thomas]

Not the various kinds of, like, virtues or modes of living.

[Graham]

First room is blue.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Graham]

Second one is. I think it's golden and then white.

[Thomas]

Like your. The stages of your life.

[Graham]

Yeah. So blue for birth and then eventually.

[Thomas]

Why blue for birth?

[Graham]

That's just common.

[Thomas]

Is it? Yeah, blue is a common color of birth.

[Graham]

So I gather. What, Baby blue?

[AJ]

What about girls? I don't.

[Thomas]

Yeah, but justify yourself.

[Graham]

Okay.

[Thomas]

I can totally understand golden, like your golden youth and your little baby.

[Graham]

Your golden youth and then perfect little childhood. Let me. Let me look up the colors again.

[Thomas]

What was it? White and then. Okay, then there was gold, like in your. Or your. Yeah.

[Graham]

Orangely blue.

[AJ]

So blue and then purple, green. Orange, white, Violet. Yeah, black.

[Thomas]

None of this makes sense.

[Graham]

So, I mean, close enough. Like, white, you're kind of like, getting old. Getting old. And then violet is your decline.

[Thomas]

Why is violet decline?

[Graham]

My only guess is because you can see all your veins and stuff.

[Thomas]

Gross.

[Graham]

That's my guess.

[AJ]

I don't know, man. Why does it have to mean something? It's just cool colors.

[Graham]

Orange maturity.

[Thomas]

Thomas, this is English class.

[Graham]

What are we doing? Well, I mean, very clearly at the end is the room of death.

[Thomas]

Right?

[Graham]

And everyone's trying to hang out in the end. It's even follows the course of the sun, Right. East for the rising sun and then west for the setting sun, which is where the ebony room is.

[Thomas]

So is there anything. Do they do anything in those rooms that would maybe hint what the rooms were for?

[Graham]

No, it doesn't really spend time in each one. But it does talk about how the. The paths themselves sort of meander. I can even see there being. And this is. This is a bit of a stretch, but there being a little bit of symbolism in the way that the rooms are lit. Right. That color of the room, say, orange is lit by windows of that same color. So Your perspective on that time of life is affected by that time of life. That's my best guess. For those. I don't know what's blood at the end, Maybe just for the effect.

[Thomas]

And then the clock is clearly like the time that is chiming, that is

[Graham]

telling you, hey, man, the chime is memento Mori, probably. And then the clock is your eventual right. Once you reach the last room, you're toast. And then I. I even like the way and how it says it's not a clear vista, that you can see the whole thing. It's a mean and widely changing. Like, it's not a straight path. So all of that makes sense.

[Thomas]

It is very psychological.

[Graham]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[AJ]

The.

[Graham]

The rooms are really kind of, I think, where the big payoff is, but there's also the element of, you know, you can't, like, try as you might, you cannot bar the door against death. Pestilence. Yeah. That thing that will come for you, and it will sneak in in the middle of your revelry, even when you don't like it. When you see sort of the. The path, like the life path. Symbolism. All those little giggles after Memento Mori is like, that's fine. And it won't. It won't get me again. That makes a little more sense. Talking about the life at large.

[Thomas]

There's no character that, like, doesn't. Isn't a coward, and there's no character that's like, well, I guess it's my time. Like, there's no.

[Graham]

There's like, two characters.

[AJ]

Prospero.

[Graham]

It's Prospero. The revelers and the. And the Mask of the Red Death is kind of the whole show.

[AJ]

And does Prospero speak? Like, do we have. Is there dialogue in here?

[Graham]

Yeah, well, he kind of yells at him, and he's like, get out of here. Seize him. And we're gonna hang him on the gallows. And then chases him down. It's not like a long dialogue. I don't think there's a lot to gather from it other than he's kind of hacked that the Red Death has made it into his revelry.

[Thomas]

Poe sounds like quite the guy. Sounds like a real life of the party.

[Graham]

I wonder if there's also a statement about wealth here, because notice that it's not just a town that's reveling. It's only the wealthy that have tried to bar out the poor. And so no matter, like, how much cash you have and how you set yourself up separate from everybody else, you still have to suffer the same Things that everybody else suffers.

[Thomas]

It's definitely a bleak view of life.

[Graham]

It's not a positive one.

[AJ]

You don't think there's like a. I don't like. Is Poe satisfied by, like, he. He wants this punishment. Right. Like, these people think they can escape this. Their wealth can save them. Actually, their. What's the phrase? They also will have darkness and decay in the Red Death with illimitable dominion over them.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[AJ]

Like, there's kind of a satisfaction, too, of like, they don't escape this either.

[Graham]

Yeah. I have a few more thoughts and questions about his literature and his place in literature overall, but I want to talk about the other story first, which is also kind of fun. So the other story is the Fall of the House of Usher. Now I'm going to read.

[AJ]

You're going to think Usher every time you.

[Graham]

You kind of have to. It's so much better. So I'm not going to read huge chunks of this. I think I'll read the end and maybe a poem in the middle, because the end is really entertaining, especially if I ham it up a little bit. So the Fall of A House of Usher is about a guy who. It opens with him arriving on horseback through sort of a dismal rainy day at this house. And the house fills him with horror and revulsion. Even though the house has held together, it's. There's. There's like moss all over it. There's mold everywhere. The stones are nearly broken completely to pieces. And you find out that this house, the House of Usher, is the abode of. Of the last sort of man in the reigning line of Usher. And apparently one of the curses of this line is that they can never issue more than a single son. It's the name. Just. It's always one dude. It's not a family tree. It's a single family vine that just goes up and doesn't sprout. And it's a post. And he's been living there. And he sends a letter to his friend asking him to come help. And this guy has this weird revulsion of the house. It's falling apart. He kind of notices there's a crack going from the top to the bottom, all meandering through the stones. And he looks in the lake. He's like, maybe I can. Maybe it's just a perspective. If I look in the lake, it'll flip everything upside down. I won't feel so bad. And he looks in the lake. He's like, nope, that's worse. It's terrible. They look like everything's awful. It looks like eyes. But I have to go help my friend because they were friends in boyhood. So he goes in and meets sort of the. I want to say usher, but it's the guy.

[Thomas]

Concierge.

[Graham]

Yeah, the concierge butler takes him upstairs. He sees a doctor on the way out, and the doctor's like. Like he's not. Doesn't seem like a great dude. So he finds his friend in this little. Look at this expansive apartment with little tiny windows at the top, barely any light coming through, and he's got, like, wispy hair that's all grown out. Let's see. I should read that description because that's pretty fun. Let's see if I can find it.

[Thomas]

Why even make an apartment with tiny windows up at the top?

[Graham]

I know. I don't. I don't understand.

[Thomas]

Okay, so it's gonna make you feel bad when you're lying in bed.

[Graham]

Agreed. I feel like you should just have more light. Keeping of the character premises is deficiency, perhaps.

[Thomas]

Moving architectural choices is really the theme of these.

[AJ]

Yes. I think you're really getting. Yeah, you're grasping it.

[Graham]

Okay, here's his. Like, what he looks like. We sat down, and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity and half of awe. Surely men had never before so terribly altered in so brief a period as had Roderick Usher. It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion. An eye large, liquid and luminous beyond comparison. Lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of surprisingly beautiful curve. A nose of delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations. A fine moulded chin, speaking in its want of prominence of a want of moral energy. Hair of a more than web like softness and tenuity. These features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now, in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin and the now miraculous luster of the eye above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded. And as in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face. I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.

[AJ]

So he's not doing so well.

[Graham]

He's not all right.

[AJ]

Yeah.

[Graham]

Yeah. It says he suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses. He's just having trouble. And a lot of it is like a nervous thing. And reading this now in this era, it makes me wonder if they knew something of. I don't know if it's autism. It's some. Like, he's got some sensory issues. I'm gonna read it right now. And I wonder if those same issues existed back then. They just didn't know quite what to call them. But you might recognize them here. He suffered from a morbid acuteness of the senses. The most insipid food alone was alone endurable. He could wear only garments of certain texture. The odors of all flowers were oppressive. His eyes were tortured by even a faint light. And there were but peculiar sounds. And these from stringed instruments which did not inspire him with horror, to an anomalous species of terror. I found him a bound slave. I shall perish, said he. I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in the results. I shudder at the thought of any even the most trivial incident which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have indeed no abhorrence of danger except in its absolute effect in terror, in this unnerved, in this pitiable condition. I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together in some struggle with the grim phantasm fear.

[AJ]

So he seems pretty upset.

[Graham]

Yeah, he's not having a good time. And part of it is because his sister's sick.

[AJ]

Bummer.

[Graham]

And I think during this particular interview, they're sitting there, and I don't know if she came in from a different part or if she was, like, laying in the room, but she sort of pops up out of nowhere and passes through. And our main character is like, whoa, whoa, there's a lady. She doesn't look okay. And apparently that was her last little try at walking around. And after that, she was bedridden. The doctors no longer allowed her to see anyone. And so our main character and Usher sat together and just tried to cheer him up. And he quickly became convinced it was

[Thomas]

impossible to cheer the guy up.

[Graham]

To cheer the guy up. He could only play on guitar. And he played weird sort of improvised melodies. And there were dirges. And he wrote these poems where everything seemed great and then, like, the king would die and the people would suffer and everything was terrible and the good. The good days were gone. Yeah, Usher wrote it, buddy. I know. Not the one that's played in the club. Different tunes. And he would paint, but it was all these weird, horrible paintings. Like, one was of an underground. The one described is of an underground chamber that, like, it's clearly underground because of all the little, like, peaks you have of doorways and windows. And it's brilliantly lit, but there's no way that it's actually lit. There's no light bulbs, there's no candles, there's no torches, anything. It just has a weird and brilliant light kind of happening. It's all very bizarre. So this guy gets worse and worse and worse, and they, like, eventually, after all of that stuff, it talks about how he, like Usher, has developed a superstition that is now coming upon our main character and that it's in the sentience of all vegetable things. Now, it sounds like it means that he just thinks plants are alive and talk and think. But that's not it. It's all, like, immaterial things have some sort of sentience, and particularly the house. He's like, this house is working upon me horror, and I can't really escape it. And it starts to leak onto our main character, who starts to think, yeah, this house isn't really great. It's got some weird stuff going on with it. And he starts to stay up late at night, and it's really not great. And then the sister dies. And so they go and bury her in the family vault, which is right under our main character's room.

[AJ]

Oh, my.

[Graham]

Go.

[AJ]

Unreal.

[Graham]

I know. It's not a great situation. And it turns out that way. In the past, it must have housed some sort of gunpowder or something. Strange, because half of it's lined with copper. And so they take her down there, they crack it. They look at her face and they're like, this is awfully sad. She's so sweet. Turns out it's Roderick Usher's twin. They were twins, so they had that weird twin connection. And so he lost the only real cheer in his life when she died. So they go back up and.

[Thomas]

But he's the last Usher. Does he have a kid?

[Graham]

He doesn't.

[Thomas]

Dude, get on it.

[Graham]

He needs to have an Usher, because apparently they can only, you know, there only be one.

[Thomas]

Get one. Yeah, like Highlander.

[Graham]

Exactly. It's the Highlander of the Ushers. All right, let Me find the end, and I will read it to you. So, thoughts so far? Any?

[AJ]

It's weird. I'm. Yeah, part of me. Do we end with finding out what is going on, or is that all there is?

[Thomas]

That demon house.

[AJ]

Yeah, demon house is haunting everyone, and that's it.

[Graham]

I have a theory.

[AJ]

Okay.

[Graham]

And I'll get there. I think while he is in the middle of the storm. There's a storm. Yeah. So after they bury the sister, the main character stays up all night. There's a wild, crazy storm, and they throw open the shutters and wind blows all around the room, and there's wind kind of going everywhere. But they can see outside that there is right here. I'll read it. But under the surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, all the blowing air, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about the enshrouded mansion.

[Thomas]

Yeah, you don't want that.

[Graham]

So there's, like, weird gas coming from underground.

[Thomas]

Yeah, you don't want that at all.

[AJ]

So it's a gas leak, is what's causing all that?

[Graham]

It sounds like it. It sounds like there's some, like, methane leak that this guy's going on, and it's driving him totally batty.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Graham]

So Usher yells about it. He's like, you must not. You shall not behold this. Or our main character says this, said I shudderingly to Usher as I led him with gentle violence from the window to a seat. And then this is part where I kind of want to read. It's kind of fun. These appearances which bewilder you are merely electrical phenomena, not uncommon. Or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. The mountain lake. Let us close this casement. The air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read and you shall listen, and so we will pass away this terrible night together. The antique volume which I had taken up was the mad tryst of Sir Lancelot Canning, but I had called it a favorite of Usher's. More in sad jest and in earnest. For in truth there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand, and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac might find relief for the History of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies, even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have judged indeed by the wild, overstrained air of vivacity with which he hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the words of the tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my design. I had arrived at the well known portion of the story, where Ethelred, the hero of the tryst, having sought in vain for peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force. Here it will be remembered the words of the native run thus. And I feel like, because this is a really cheesy old bad romance book, I have to give it a little cheese. And Aethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now mighty withal on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who in sooth was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and with blows made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand. And now, pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked and ripped and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow sounding wood alarmed and reverberated throughout the forest. At the termination of the sentence I started, and for a moment paused. For it appeared to me, although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me, it appeared to me that for some very remote portion of the mansion there came indistinctly to my ears what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo, but a stifled and dull one, certainly, of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was beyond doubt the coincidences alone which had had arrested my attention. For amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound in itself had nothing surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story. But the good champion Aethelred, now entering within the door, was sore, enraged, and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit, but instead the stead thereof. A dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanor and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold with a floor of silver, and upon the wall there hung a shiny sorry, a shield of shining brass, with this legend in written, who enter herein a conqueror hath been, who slayeth the dragon. The shield shall win. And Ethelred uplifted his mace and struck upon the head of the dragon which fell before him and gave up his pesty breath.

[Thomas]

Yeah. Take that drain.

[Graham]

With a shriek so horrid and harsh and withal so piercing that Aethelred had feigned to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard.

[Thomas]

Uh. Oh. Oh, I know what's gonna happen.

[Graham]

What's gonna happen?

[Thomas]

There's gonna be a shriek of a dragon in the house.

[Graham]

Okay. Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazement, for there could be no doubt whatever that in this instance I did actually hear, although from what direction it proceeded, I found impossible to say. A low and apparently distant but harsh, protracted and most unusual screaming or grating sound. Yeah.

[Thomas]

Stop reading, man.

[Graham]

The exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described in the Romancer.

[Thomas]

Just go like, put on an episode of Friends or something.

[Graham]

No. They're doing the wrong thing. Oppressed as I certainly was upon the occurrence of this most the second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question, although assuredly a strange alteration had during the last few minutes taken place in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his chair so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber, and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped onto his breast. Yet I knew that he was not asleep from the wide and rigid opening of the eyes as I caught a glance of it in the profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this idea, for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Lancelot. Don't do it.

[AJ]

Bad idea.

[Graham]

Which thus proceeded. And now the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way before him and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.

[AJ]

In the room we hear a ringing sound Right now we actually do. This is concerning.

[Graham]

No sooner had these syllables passed my lips than as if a shield of brass had indeed at that moment fallen heavily upon a floor of silver, I became aware of a distinct hollow metallic and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leapt to my feet. But the measured rocking rockment of Usher was undisturbed. Okay, do you guys want to has like two pages left? I can just tell you essentially what happens. So there's murmuring from Mr. Usher, and he says, I dared not speak. We have put her living in the tomb, said I. Not that my senses were acute. I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them many, many days ago, yet I dare not, I dared not speak. And now tonight, Ethelred, Ha ha. The breaking of the hermit's door and the death cry of the dragon and the clanging of the shield, say rather the rending of her coffin and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault. So he says, matt, at the end of his raving, he says, madman, I tell you that she now stands without the door. The door flies open and his sister standing there and she like. Of course, she's all like bloody and trying to stand because the poor girl's like been in a coffin for a couple of days, right? She falls on him. Our main character runs out of the room, he's like, I gotta get out.

[AJ]

He's like.

[Graham]

Cause apparently Mr. Usher dies at the same moment. Like, he's so agitated that when she falls on him, he's toast, okay? So he runs outside and he watches as the whole house cracks from top to bottom and then falls into the horrible mountain lake. And that's the story, the end.

[Thomas]

So why did he bury his sister?

[Graham]

Thought she was dead?

[AJ]

No.

[Graham]

Apparently it shows up in Poe stories quite a bit. And this is a thing that they actually used to have a lot of problems with. If somebody went into a com, just put them in the ground, and they actually had to use to hang bells. You know about this? Yeah, yeah. So hang bell over the grave that you little string down in your coffin, you could jingle if you were still alive. I don't know if those worked very well, but it was a thing, you know, fall into a swoon and they'd put you in the ground.

[AJ]

He has a short story called the Premature Burial.

[Thomas]

Well, there's a telltale heart right where the person's buried under the floor.

[Graham]

Yeah, well, I think that's just a hidden heart, isn't it?

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Graham]

Anyway, that's the story. The, the House of Usher is two sided. So it's the fall of the house, which is the actual building and the house like the actual line.

[Thomas]

The end of the line, the ancestral line.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Thomas]

So what's, so why is the house falling? Like, well, what caused all of this psychological trauma and malady of the twins?

[Graham]

I mean really, my guess is actually something that was coming out of the ground. I mean if you're seeing like weird gas coming out of the ground, it's not good for the foundation of the house. It's also not great for the foundation people.

[Thomas]

Yeah, have you ever heard of those? Like there's this tribe, I can't remember where it is, somewhere in South America. And their vision of the gods were that the gods were like randomly malignant and would just like randomly for no reason kill you. Just they were, the gods were jerks.

[Graham]

And this is, I remember you telling

[Thomas]

me about this, and this was their deity that the gods were just sort of like every now and then would randomly, just for no reason, kill everybody. Turns out that their, a lot of their, their early tribes were by this lake that actually had this like gas that was seeping into the bottom of it and would build up at the bottom of the lake. And then every. And then eventually we get to a critical mass where the gas would actually seep out of the lake. And since the gas was heavy, it would lie low underneath the oxygen on the, the landscape. And like everybody would die because they, there'd be no more oxygen. All of a sudden you were just breathing in whatever the gas was. And so anybody who lived by the lake, it was like every couple of generations, it was like every 30, 50, 100 years, whatever it was, everybody would just like on random die. And so they built up this mythology of the, the fickleness and the arbitrariness of the gods, but really it was just because they were like next to methane, Methane, methane lake or whatever it was.

[Graham]

I think that's the same case here. It just sounds. And it's even because. Especially because our main character was sort of starting to get the same weird agitation just living in the house.

[Thomas]

You don't think so you don't think like the house was something, something bad went down. I mean they clearly had this, like, weird chamber, copper chamber, where they buried people and.

[Graham]

Yeah, and I was just gonna say that's one thing that Edgar Allan Poe does really well is talk. He. He uses a lot of laden language about horror. So there's a lot of suffering, there's a lot of derangement. Like, he just. Those words pop up again and again, sort of. Sort of give you the feel. And he's really good at talking about the feel, the atmosphere, and it builds atmosphere really.

[Thomas]

Well, I always. My remember of Edgar Allan Poe is always that whatever the ailment or the suffering is, it's usually some, like, ancestral generational thing that's coming back to get you.

[Graham]

Yeah.

[Thomas]

So, like, it's something that has existed far back in the line, like the. The house has been cracked and it's been this terrible place. And this is the final straw of this, like, this family's decline, or in the other story, it was like these sort of snobby rich aristocrats who are going to, like, survive by getting, you know, blocking, keeping all the poors outside, and they're gonna, like, revel themselves, and then the Black Death or the great Crimson Death or whatever comes against them. And so he sort of has this idea of, like, there are these, like, ancestral sins or these ancestral things that sort of follow people around and then eventually, eventually, like, spring on you. And.

[Graham]

And there's also a lot of stories of, like, the retribution and horrors of nature.

[AJ]

Yeah.

[Graham]

You know, like, there's one where a guy's sort of mourning his wife on the table and then, like, tiger leaps through the window and drags her body off. That's a weird one. I think it's a leopard. He's a. He does a really good job of the fear. I think I've heard it called the fear of the numinous. Basically, the fear of an evil you cannot name.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Graham]

And I think that, like, it's an ancestral thing, lends it to. It's more than just a physical malady of one person.

[Thomas]

It's Lovecraft too. Right. It's. It's of that time. I wonder why. I wonder why that was, like, in vogue in the mid 19th century. Was it just that there was so many scientific discoveries that it just. Everyone there was like, such, like, everything was being explained. Everything was being explained. Like, I. I remember somebody saying once, imagine when we discovered the microscope and then realizing that you had this entire world of living creatures that have been there all along and you had no idea. And then, like, what that sort of opens up to your World view, your understanding of the world must be like, equal parts fascinating and exciting and positive. And, you know, like, there's a tremendous amount of optimism. But then there's also, like, who knows what other horrible things are out there we have no idea of. And yes, this. This. The horror of the numinous and this kind of stuff.

[Graham]

Yeah. There's just. There's a lot going on and he. He draws in the horrors of, like, here the. One of the things is the sentience of vegetable things. So everything around you might be malicious and trying to hurt you and drive you crazy. And the. There's stuff coming out of the earth that you're not. It's just some gaseous exhalation. Like, there's just so many mysteries and I wonder if there's also an element of, you know, tuberculosis was a thing. Diseases could randomly kill you. There was a whole lot that hadn't been explained yet, even though they were explaining so much. So I think it's kind of a perfect intersection of. We've explained a lot of things. A lot of that is scary. And there's still a whole lot we don't know that is also scary.

[Thomas]

Like, could you imagine if we finally had, like, the instruments to detect that there was actually a whole host of living beings that.

[Graham]

Fourth dimension creatures.

[Thomas]

Yeah. That have been around and we just. And have always been there and we never realized it and we just now have the instruments to be able to detect it. And maybe they're not like, sentient, they're just sort of like. Like whatever, plasma blobs or something. But like, that would. That would rock a lot of boats. That would be just crazy to think about anyway. So it's just. I wonder if just at that time, this is also just working out of the age that they're living in, of. Of scientific discovery and. And it seems like all this new stuff keeps popping up and. Because, like, even in those stories you get the one character that's trying to give the scientific explanation as to why this is happening. My friend, this is just gas. This is just.

[Graham]

And they're usually the one who's driven

[Thomas]

mad and they're the ones that, like, maybe the whole point of the story is the whole point, but one of the points of the story is, is that their scientific materialism is rendered impotent in the face of this horrific thing

[Graham]

that happens a lot.

[Thomas]

Yeah.

[Graham]

So this. This, like, Poe is famous, right. He wrote all this great horror literature. I enjoy it. I find it pretty entertaining. It was also the source of a

[Thomas]

lot of what do you like about it?

[Graham]

Well, that's the thing. It made me wonder, and I've heard a lot of people say this around our department quite a bit. And people read a book and say there's no like redeeming character. There's no moment of, you know, salvation or anything like that. And my question is, why. Why does there have to be. Like, that isn't the only experience of human life. If. If the only reason you go to literature is to have like the comfort of someone being saved or redeemed. Like, that's not. That's just not what happens.

[AJ]

I think you have enough bleak stuff happening that. Why do you need to read a book about that?

[Graham]

Well, we've talked about that a little bit and I think it was in an AMA that we talked about it. Like why I'm okay with horror and how horror is akin to. Akin to something like tragedy, right? Where tragedy by. By bringing up feelings of nervousness and anxiety about a potential fall from the stuff that you have, like losing what you have and the wasting of humanity. I think horror does the same thing, but with death, right? All of those weird sort of buried feelings about death. You have come to the surface when you watch horror or read a book like this. And through inciting those feelings, you find catharsis, right? The tension comes, all your cortisol goes up, you get really stressed out. And then at the end it sort of brings resolution to those feelings. It's like when the clock chimes in his first tale. Everyone feels real bad and then that passes and someone giggles and then you move on with the party. That's kind of why I don't mind it. And I. This dovetails into a bigger discussion I want to have. And unfortunately, I don't think we have enough time here to do it. I was chatting with a guy, so shout out to the fellow who stayed with me for the last few days. He's starting a school in London. It's pretty awesome. And he. We had a discussion about virtue, especially as it comes up in classical education. Everyone seems like. Because it is easy and easy to understand and easy framework for how to teach kids and it's easy to talk about and sell to potential families that like what we do is we teach your kids virtue. That's partially true. Like they will get virtues at least some as a byproduct. But the primary job of classical education, and this is where it gets a little more. I don't know. I haven't fully fleshed out my opinions on this is prudence like, that's our main job is teaching them prudence, how to know the right, like, the good and the right from wrong, and then the intellectual virtues. That's what we mostly do. If we were teaching them courage, we would have to. Have to be a military school. Like, there are elements of things that require courage here. They have to get up and speak in front of people. But that's not like. I don't know if that's our main job. Correct.

[Thomas]

We would have to do more, like, things that scared them.

[Graham]

Exactly. And temperance. Like, we do some of that, but that's. We are not here to do specifically those things. And while it's easy to, like, sell those to parents, we are focused on one or, like one primary virtue, I would say. And then a few of the intellectual virtues.

[Thomas]

And my question is, it makes sense because prudence is. Needs to be the first virtue taught. And so that's why it's, like, associated with. With kids.

[Graham]

Oh, absolutely. And we totally should. It's just I wonder how much this also brings into question. Like, when we bring up certain books to be included in our curriculum, or I'm talking to a friend about books they should read, and I say, hey, Edgar Allan Poe is great. And they say, okay, what virtue am I going to get taught? I don't know that that's the right question. Is that the question that we should ask when we approach. When we approach a book?

[AJ]

Do you want to do this here? Do you want to do it in the in between?

[Graham]

It might need to be an in between thing because we're just about running out of time. But this is the question that kind of comes up when I read literature. Like, this is what. Like, is it something we should teach our kids? And if it's. If it is, then under what criteria? And does there have to be redeeming like, it always. It also comes back to our is there such thing as an evil book discussion? Anyway, we can do it in between. That's. Those are the two stories. Edgar Allan Poe is great. Whatever conclusion we come to in the in between, you should go read him. He's great fun.

[AJ]

Okay, so this has been classical stuff. You should know. We keep referencing these things called in between episodes. If you support us on Patreon, patreon.com classicalstuff and you support us at the nightmare level or above. Do people even know what that reference is anymore?

[Graham]

It's been so long, I don't remember what episode it is.

[AJ]

I mean, it's got to be in our double digits. Got to be before 100. It's. Anyway, when Graham learned how to spell nightmare Live on episode, it was incredible. Should we do clips of our incredible moments? Because it's that and it's someone saying that 2020 was going to be our greatest year ever.

[Graham]

There's. That one's pretty good. And then I think when we invented the Cult was pretty fun.

[AJ]

Kult was good. Helios, Acolytes of Love was a good one. Anyway, we got to put all that stuff together anyway, so you can support us on Patreon. If you do, you can get access to a monthly ama. That's an Ask me anything. It's where our listeners ask questions and we answer them. It's an hour or an hour and a half and it's super, super fun. So you should join and check that out.

[Thomas]

Sorry for singing.

[AJ]

Sorry for singing. You sang at the beginning of this episode. Yeah, People enjoy that. Okay, then.

[Thomas]

I'm sure some people didn't enjoy it. They'll comment.

[AJ]

They're pressing 30 seconds. Skip banter for the first 10 minutes. Start the episode at. Yeah, we get some of that. We had a listener.

[Graham]

They just don't like us. They just want.

[AJ]

Yeah. Yes.

[Thomas]

Which is fair.

[Graham]

It's OK if you don't like.

[AJ]

You know, it's not for everyone.

[Thomas]

I have my days. I feel like I like them sometimes.

[AJ]

You don't like yourself some days.

[Thomas]

Is that like.

[Graham]

Come on, Donaldson, pull together.

[AJ]

You can find us on our website, classicalstuff.net you can email us the [e-mail] you can find us on x.com classical stuff. C L S S C A L Stuff that I think is everything. So we're going to record it in between episode and we'll post that to Patreon. Thanks, everyone.

[Graham]

Bye.

[AJ]

Bye.