A Comparison Of Alfred Hitchcock And Edgar Allan Poe

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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
illness, seems to die twice, and appears as Roderick's double. For
Hitchcock, it is the mother who is at first seen as a murderer and tyrant,
but who turns out to have been dead for years, and who lives only through
her son's insanity. The death of both women is a source of mystery and
horror. In both stories the woman is kept in the lower section of the
house — Madeline in a coffin and ...

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