Visit to the House of Usher

Before our official visit in the House of Usher, Skylar (Chelsea), Jordyn (Jordan), and I (Jordin) arrived at Richmond Island in order to change our outfits into 19th Century dresses. After we met with Ignatius (Dr. Essid), we each took turns stepping into the hot air balloon before teleporting from the balloon into the House of Usher. Upon arriving at the House, the outside was parallel to what I had imagined when reading Poe’s short story. There was not one happy or joyful aspect about the outside of the House so I could only imagine how the inside would looks and this only gave the three of us uneasy feelings about the next hour ahead of us.

The role that I was assigned was to follow Roderick around the House and make sure that he remained distracted so I came up with a list of questions and comments in order to keep him occupied. I became quickly frustrated at first because I thought that he was ignoring my questions as I followed him around the House while he was giving me a tour. I am not completely familiar with Second Life however so the communication aspect of it could have been a little off so I was not too worried. However, I would try and ask questions to get clues about what Roderick and Madeline had been up to or what would happen within the hour but at times I was continually ignored. While I followed Roderick around the House, Chelsea searched around the House for clues as to what Roderick and Madeline had been up to before our arrival. Roderick and Madeline continuously told us that “they had a bad feelings as to what was going to happen that night.” This made us worried as we knew the original plot of having Madeline buried alive and our goal was to prevent this from even coming close to happening.

Jordan followed Madeline around the House to make sure that she did not lose sight of her. At one point closer to the end of the night, Madeline fainted and Jordan stood by her bed to make sure that she would stay alive and that no one, especially the curious doctor, would bury her alive. Madeline and Roderick spoke many times about how they had a bad feeling about the night. I would ask Roderick why he had these suspicions and he said that both himself and his sister had fallen ill and very weak and that he would not take her to the doctor because they both feared that the doctor did not have Madeline’s best interest in mind as he had been planning to use her body for scientific purposes. Several times we offered to Madeline and Roderick to go outside because that would be safer than the inside where Madeline was seeing green lights and hearing screeching noises.

Finally, after about an hour of strategy and confrontation with Madeline, Roderick, and Margaret, all of the actors and Jordan, Chelsea, and I all made it outside safely and everyone was alive.

Overall, while visiting the House of Usher I was pleasantly surprised. There were many special effects such as the screeching noises and the green lights that made me feel as though I was actually part of Poe’s story. One mishap that I came across was that I was not so sure what type of questions to ask Roderick. This was a very vague task to “just keep him distracted” and although I could not see his actual face expressions, I felt as though he was beginning to get annoyed with me. I’m not sure if I would change anything particularly for next time to make the House more realistic. I did get lost in the crypt though and I missed a good amount of the action in the end right when Madeline fainted and the doctor was trying to help out. This was the only part of the House that I think could be improved. Other than that, the special effects were extremely well done and everything was very realistic such as the outfits that the three actors were wearing. Roderick repeatedly said, “mind the mice,” every time a mouse trickled by and I found this humorous.