ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Roderick’s Illness He describes Roderick as being a hypochondriac. Roderick explains that he suffers from ‘’morbid acuteness of the senses. ‘’ This hypersensitivity to taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound he blames on a family evil.

Detailed explanation-2: -Roderick exhibits eccentric traits characteristic of schizotypal personality disorder and, as the tale unfolds, manifests symptoms of schizophrenia. While the narrator strives to hold onto his rationality, he eventu-ally becomes, in his own words, “infected” by Roderick’s superstitious beliefs.

Detailed explanation-3: -He declares that his illness is the product of “a constitutional and a family evil.” (The narrator later dismisses this as a cognitive symptom of Roderick’s “nervous affection.”) Roderick also reveals that Madeline, his twin sister and sole companion in the house, is gravely ill.

Detailed explanation-4: -Roderick is intellectual and bookish, and his twin sister, Madeline, is ill and bedridden. Roderick’s inability to distinguish fantasy from reality resembles his sister’s physical weakness. Poe uses these characters to explore the philosophical mystery of the relationship between mind and body.