Literary Analysis On The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Mr. Usher represents the mind to her body and suffers from the mental counterpart of his physical illness, Mr. Usher inability to distinguish fantasy from reality resembles his sister’s physical weakness. The narrator knows little about the house of usher and is to visit the mansion in many years. “ I had been passing alone, on horseback...” (1) This basically saying how it has been many years that they haven’t seen the house and it looks very old and dull,

The story of “The Fall of the House of Usher by Edger Allan Poe shows that the narrator is having a nervous break down. The story is about the narrator going to the usher house do to the fact that his childhood friend Roderick wrote him to come help him and his sister who is mentally ill. Through the story Roderick shows how insane he is and his sister, the ushers ultimatally die and the house crumbles to the ground. The story had a disturbing and dark presents through out it just like the narrator’s mind. One might make the inference that the narrator is actually narrating what is happing in his mind and having a nervous break down. The narrator is projecting his symptoms on the imaginary Usher family.

In the story, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, there are many mysterious happenings that go on throughout the story between the characters Roderick Usher and the narrator. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe uses themes such as madness and insanity to connect the house back to Roderick Usher. In the “Fall of The House of Usher”, the narrator goes through many different experiences when arriving to the house. The narrator’s experiences start out as almost unnoticeable in the beginning, turn into bigger ones right before his eyes, and end up becoming problems that cause deterioration of the mind and the house before the narrator even decides to do anything helpful for Roderick and his mental illness. In “The Fall of The

The narrator comes to the House to aid his dying friend, Roderick Usher. As he arrives at the House he comes upon an “aura of vacancy and decay… creating a pathologically depressive mood” (Cook). The state of the House is daunting to the narrator – he describes it with such features as “bleak walls”, “eye-like windows”, “rank sedges”, “decayed trees”, and “an utter depression of the soul”. These images foreshadow a less than pleasant future for the narrator and his dear friend Roderick. Poe continues to foreshadow the narrators turn of events with a description of the House’s “dark” and “comfortless” furniture. The House becomes a living hell for the narrator as he watches Roderick’s condition evolve and struggles to understand the mystery tying unfortunate events together. However, as the narrator gradually becomes more enveloped in Roderick and the House’s malady, he seems to develop a malady of his own. While the narrator’s illness is less prominent than that of Roderick and his sister Lady Madeline, the sicknesses are one in the same.

Filled with a sense of dread by the sight of the house itself, the Narrator reunites with his old companion, who is suffering from a strange mental illness and whose sister, Madeline, is near to death due to a mysterious disease. The Narrator provides company to Usher while he paints and plays guitar, spending all his days inside, avoiding the sunlight and obsessing over the sentience of the non-living. When Madeline dies, Usher decides to bury her temporarily in one of his house's large vaults. A few days later, however, she emerges from her provisional tomb, killing her brother while the Narrator flees for his life. The House of Usher splits apart and collapses, wiping away the last remnants of the ancient family. Edgar’s inspiration for this story might have come from true events of the Usher House, located on Boston's Lewis Wharf. As that story goes, a sailor and the young wife of the older owner were caught and entombed in their trysting spot by her husband. When the Usher House was torn down in 1800, two bodies were found embraced in a cavity in the cellar (Neilson).

Poe's gothic tale has inspired generations of readers with his unique style of rich detail and sheer horror. In, “The Fall of the House of Usher” one finds the house mysteriously connected with its inhabitants. As they slowly fall into a state of decay, both mental and physical, so also does its structure weaken, eventually collapsing into the tarn in which it was standing, as its tenants fall prey to the strain of body and mind. Without them, the house cannot stand.

The Fall Of the House Of Usher is a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe in 1839. The short story is complexly written, with challenging themes such as identity and fear. Poe utilises many elements of the Gothic Tradition such as setting and supernatural elements to create a more mysterious story, and uses language to his advantage, employing adjective filled descriptions of literal elements that also serve as metaphors for other parts of the story.

Was the old man’s heart actually beating? No, this ringing sound existed solely in the narrator’s mind, “telling on him”, reflecting on his guilt and making him confess. The Tell Tale Heart narrator was obviously mentally ill. As opposed to him, the narrator in The Fall House of Usher seems to in his right mind. However, another character in this short story is Roderick Usher, a depressed hypochondriac who suffers from anxiety and hypersensitivity and also believes that his house is “sentient”. Such a state of mind could have been caused by the handicap of his twin sister, with whom Roderick had “a special bond”, which might be another indicator of their incestuous relationship. The supernatural element comes into play when the narrator and Roderick start hearing sounds and when Madeline appears from her improvised tomb. Did she really die? If not, how did the cataleptic girl manage to escape? Was it a double hallucination and the vision of his sister served as cause of Roderick’s death rather than her body falling on him? The narrator chooses not do dwell on this questions and flees from the building as quick as possible. Those elements of supernatural represent the darker side of the human psyche, the mental disorders that make an individual behave in an odd, violent, or cruel manner, they reflect how the aberration of mind reveals the

Hence, Poe appropriates a setting that seems to contaminate the characters. Just as the atmosphere and landscape seem translated into the characters, the house, as another primary feature of setting, functions as a symbol for the Usher family. The narrator even mentions initially that “House of Usher” had come to represent both family and home. Therefore, the house itself can be seen as an embodiment of the family. Poe emphasizes this symbolism by personifying the house, providing it with the anatomy of humans: “eye-like windows” and clothing: a “veil.” Moreover, the house is deteriorating just as the family is. The Ushers, Roderick and his sister Madeline, have no relatives, only themselves, and both are suffering with unusual illness. Finally, after Roderick and Madeline die, likewise the house completely breaks apart, characterizing the fate of the family.

While the narrator is there, he experiences strange noises and occurrences. “The Fall of The House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe show’s that fear can take over people’s life. Firstly, there are multiple symbols in “The Fall of The House of Usher”. The narrator says, “...House of Usher an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion” (Poe 476).

One question seems to loom over the story of the Usher house; are all the strange happenings just hallucinations brought on by Roderick's crippling terror, or is there something more to the House of Usher than meets the eye? Fear in itself is a powerful emotion that can wreak havoc on a man and destroy him from the inside out. Nowhere is this idea more plainly written in stark detail than in his story 'Fall of the House of Usher.' Poe shows us what happens when we live a life dominated by fear and superstition. Told through the eyes of a narrator that too gets caught up in the fear that seems to permeate this haunted place, and he even can't seem to help but be slowly drug into a state of madness as unexplainable events occur, With the seed of fear sewn into the hearts of our characters, Poe shows us what damage the most deadly of emotions does to the mind.

This is confirmed and even stated within the story, “in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the ‘House of Usher’ -an appellation which seemed to include . .

The setting is described as dull, dark, soundless, and dreary and this is what gives the readers the gothic tone of the entire story. The personification of the house makes the readers feel like the house is alive and it is perceived throughout the story as a reflection of Usher’s mood and mental sanity. “In fact, the house itself becomes a character [...] as having ‘eye-like windows’, well, that goes with personification. If something has eyes, then it also has a soul since the eyes are the window to it. So this house seems to have so much of a history, and so much of a presence that it becomes a character.

The long family line has imprinted its aura onto the house, and in turn, the house conduces the inhabitants towards a predetermined lifestyle. The Usher family, as the narrator says, despite its age, has always been feeble, because it has never been able to generate an enduring branch. Just as the family, the house has a sturdy appearance, given by its endurance through time, but it is marked by decay and so are its surroundings: the crumbled stones, the trees and the spooky tarn all add to the oppressive, uncanny atmosphere. Just as the individual parts which shape the domain are marked by decomposition, so is each member of the family plagued by some form of disintegration.

The fall of the house of Usher clearly reflect us the meaning behind the death of Roderick and Madeline. This story is about some twins, Roderick and Madeline, that were living on the house of their ancestors but the house was in bad conditions, so at the final after the twins died, because they were mentally and physically sick, the house fall down, as you may noticed about this story we can conclude in what way does The fall of the house of Usher connect to the decay of the family. The fall of the house of Usher connect to the family in three important ways: the deterioration of the house, the sickness, and the fall of the house. The deterioration of the house.