Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” once drove Lisa Simpson crazy. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” it’s Victorine who can’t ignore the throbbing.
The Fall of the House of Usher (Source: Netflix)
Our comparisons between the “Fall of the House of Usher” episodes and the works of Edgar Allan Poe occasionally refer to events from future episodes. So don’t read on until you’ve already seen the entire Netflix series!
Anyone who initially suspected that Victorine from “The Fall of the House of Usher” would be killed by the orangutans on which she carried out her experiments was proven wrong in Episode 3.
However, fans of Edgar Allan Poe could tell from Camille’s name that she would die in Murder in the Rue Morgue, and Victorine’s novel pacemaker was the perfect hook for a modern adaptation of The Tell-Tale Heart. But what happened in Poe’s short story?
The treacherous heart The Fall of the House of Usher (Source: Eike Schroter/Netflix)
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a man wants to prove that he is not insane. Although he admits to having murdered an old man, in his opinion the reason was not madness or greed. Instead, the old man had a pale blue eye that reminded the narrator of a vulture and aroused a murderous hatred in him.
So the narrator went to see the old man at night, but in his sleep the old man had of course closed his eyes and without the sight of the pale blue eye, the narrator could not bring himself to kill the man.
Another night the old man was awakened by a noise from the narrator, but in the darkness he could not see him. Nothing happened for a long time until the narrator provides light with his lantern. Now he sees the hated eye and hears the old man’s heartbeat getting louder and louder. The narrator fears that the neighbors will also hear the deafening heartbeat. With a scream he lunges at the old man and suffocates him.
The narrator then hides the old man’s body under the floorboards and when the police inquire about the scream, the narrator states that he screamed in a dream and the old man was away. Sure that he will get away with his crime, the narrator chats with the police for a while, but then he suddenly hears the old man’s heartbeat again.
The narrator thinks that the police also have to hear the heartbeat and want to torture him by pretending that nothing is happening. So the narrator confesses the crime when he can no longer bear the sound of the beating heart.
Victorine LaFourcade in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is also driven further and further mad by a noise, but in her case it is the noise of the heart machine on which she and her friend, Dr. Alessandra Ruiz, worked. However, unlike the narrator in Poe’s story, Victorine does not seem to remember what she did.
All episodes from “The Fall of the House of Usher” and their Poe scripts explained:
| Review The Fall of the House of Usher | |
| genre | drama |
| First broadcast | October 12, 2023 |
| First broadcast in Germany | October 12, 2023 |
| Homepage | netflix.com |
| Other sources | |
| network | Netflix |
production | Intrepid Pictures |
| Squadrons |
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