Beautiful Dead Women: “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Part 1

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When you think horror, you think of Edgar Allan Poe. His stories go hard on the eerie atmosphere, intricate plots, and unhinged characters.

But it’s important to note that most of those characters are men. And among Poe’s female characters, two recurring traits stand out prominently: they’re usually beautiful, and they’re usually dead.

This episode explores Poe's fixation with beautiful dead women, tracing it back to his tumultuous life and personal losses, including those of his mother, Eliza Poe, and his wife, Virginia Clemm.

We’ll talk about how these experiences and the cultural glamorisation of tuberculosis victims influenced scary women in Poe’s works such as Madeline Usher, the unwitting villain of his well-known short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher".

Key moments

• 1:08 – "The Fall of the House of Usher" (abridged)
• 27:26 – Welcome to the party!
• 30:55 – Eliza Poe
• 32:48 – Tuberculosis and beauty
• 38:09 – Edgar Allan Poe and masculinity
• 40:30 – Virginia Clemm
• 48:46 – Poe's beautiful dead women

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Hoofdstukken

1. Content warning (00:00:00)

2. "The Fall of the House of Usher" (abridged) (00:01:08)

3. Welcome to the party! (00:27:26)

4. Meet Madeline Usher (00:28:36)

5. Eliza Poe (00:30:55)

6. Tuberculosis and beauty (00:32:48)

7. Frances and John Allan (00:35:34)

8. Edgar Allan Poe and masculinity (00:38:09)

9. Virginia Clemm (00:40:30)

10. "The Raven", a literary scandal, and Virginia's death (00:46:09)

11. Poe's beautiful dead women (00:48:46)

12. Poe's mysterious final days (00:51:16)

13. Virginia's final resting place (00:54:31)

14. Outro (00:55:20)