![]() ![]() It is thus evident that she had been buried alive, although whether it was done on purpose or not is left to the reader’s own interpretation. In the second to last paragraph, when Madeline appears before Roderick and the narrator, she is described as “an enshrouded figure” with “blood upon her white robe, and the evidence of some bitter struggle (…)”. Moreover, Roderick hears some noise at night but is not sure whether it is real or only a figment of his imagination. ![]() And as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that she was indeed buried alive, and that she tried to claw her way out of her tomb. This could be interpreted as a hint that Lady Madeline was not dead but was in fact buried alive. In other words, catalepsy is a condition that makes the sufferers look corpse-like. It also involves a loss of sensation and consciousness associated with rigidity of the body. ![]() Catalepsy is a nervous disorder akin to epilepsy, schizophrenia and hysteria. In other words, Lady Madeline is said to suffer from a condition that is similar to catalepsy (‘cataleptical character’). Lady Madeline’s mysterious illness is characterised as “a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person” as well as affections of “a cataleptical character”. ![]()
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