The Fall Of The House Of Usher By Edgar Allan Poe

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

As Poe is known to do he builds up the suspense all the way to the horrifying ending. It starts off pleasant enough. An unnamed narrator is called to the manor of his childhood friend, Roderick. The narrator is actually quite excited to go. He remembers the place from his boyhood as being a wondrous place. When he arrives, the house is not at all how he remembers it. In fact, he describes a small fissure running through The House of Usher. This small fissure is actually a representative of a disruption in the unity of the family, more specifically, between Madeline and her brother. Madeline is Roderick’s brother and she ends up dying due to disease. It is also revealed that the two were twins and share a sort of bond. With one of them dying, they wouldn’t be unified anymore, causing a fissure that destroys The House of Usher. This is actually foreshadowed by Roderick himself when he says, "…the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR." (Poe 10) The horrifying conclusion to this story happens when Roderick goes mad, claiming to hear his sister from inside her coffin and that they entombed her alive. What’s even crazier, is that a bloody Madeline is actually standing outside the door and tackles her brother where they both die. This causes the narrator to run away as he watches the house crack in

The Fall Of The House of Usher is a terrifying tale of the demise of the Usher family, whose inevitable doom is mirrored in the diseased and evil aura of the house and grounds. Poe uses elements of the gothic tale to create an atmosphere of terror. The decaying house is a metaphor for Roderick Usher’s mind, as well as his family line. The dreary landscape also reflects his personality. Poe also uses play on words to engage the reader to make predictions, or provide information. Poe has also set the story up to be intentionally ambiguous so that the reader is continually suspended between the real and the fantastic.

In the Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe uses mental illness to demonstrate the decay of the Usher family bloodline. Roderick and Madeline are unusual as they come from a singular line of the Usher family. Although they have been split in two as twins so they have split energies. Madeline embodied the feminine energies and Roderick the masculine. Their split can be interpreted as the separation Poe used as a part of their fallen world. The story can be read as an allegory of destructive transcendence. The Usher family had been unified until these twins they represented separation. They must both ultimately be destroyed in order to reunite. After generations of incest within the family, Madeline and Usher have been compromised, they are both unwell. People in the soundring town referrered to the house and the family inside as The House of Usher. Both Roderick and Madeline are unwell mentally and physically that eventually takes it’s toll on them. The House is also ill, it decays along with the family.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” follows a similar symbolic storyline. Throughout the story, the narrator uncovers significant details regarding the mysterious childhood friend of his and many of the important elements are revealed. Specifically, Poe designed the plot in such a way that the Usher siblings represent two sides of the same individual; Madeline and Roderick as the body and the mind respectively (Miller par 32). Since the twins are the first in their family, it shows the separation from original unity (genetically) and foreshadows that the twins must die in order for the restoration of peace. The House of Usher also has a significant symbolic value in the story; it represents Roderick’s psychological state of mind and is described by the narrator as having disturbing realistic qualities (Poe 893). Nevertheless, toward the end of the story, the epitome of the symbolic nature of this story is revealed and is concluded by an epic turn of events. Madeline collapses on Roderick as the narrator rushes to leave the house; the siblings death at the end symbolize the destruction of the physical world as shown by Madeline and the destruction of the spiritual world as displayed by Roderick’s immediate death

The Usher mansion is slowly deteriorating, just like Roderick Usher himself. The “sombre tapestries,” “ebon blackness,” and “phantasmagoric armorial trophies” did not just start showing in the house; these elements have had time to develop and is now represented as a never ending darkness, which is just like Roderick Usher’s mental illness. Not only does Poe create an image of the house, he also uses lucid details describing the Usher’s mansion and the rooms inside the home to show that Roderick’s mental illness has physically and mentally trapped him. Roderick is a gloomy and mysterious character who looks as if he is dead. Poe describes Roderick’s appearance as one to not easily be forgotten (Poe 152). In Roderick’s mind, he feels as if he has no escape from this illness, which terrifies him. His biggest fear is fear himself. The evil that has overcame his body will take a toll on his life and he is aware of it because he says “I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed no abhorrence of danger, except in it absolute effect-in terror” (Poe 153). As described in the story, the Usher house has rooms that create a somber life and with this creation, Poe is able to portray the kind of life that Roderick Usher is living and will live. Not only is this technique used in “The Fall of the House of

The Fall of the House of Usher is a story “of sickness, madness, incest, and the danger of unrestrained creativity. This is among Poe's most popular and critically-examined horror stories” (Gordon). For example if you were to close your eyes while someone was reading the story you would see the house “decaying” in your imagination (Poe). From the start of the story the narrator’s strange “insufferable gloom” is introduced. He notes the darkness of his surrounding (Gordon). The stories are very deeply described and felt.

Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher In Poe's, 'The Fall of the House of Usher,' Roderick Usher is the main protagonist, he is a male, an outcast (as he doesn't seem to have many friends), part villain (as he buried his sister alive) and also part victim (as he suffers from an illness which makes him allergic to most everyday things) and is descended from an incestuous family. The story is like all other gothic stories, it has an emphasis on horror, old-fashioned settings, stereotyped characters (Roderick), and the use of suspense and supernatural elements. It has many themes common to the gothic genre, life and death, power and control as Roderick wants control over Madeline when he buries

After evaluating the work of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, he utilizes with imagery to build up the feeling of terror. First of all, the passage is about an ill man, Roderick Usher, who invites his old friend of his to come meet him. In this passage both him and his sister, Madeline Usher, are the last remaining of the Usher race and is diagnosed with an unnatural illness. The narrator begins to feel terror with the supernatural things going on in the house of Usher and the illness of the Ushers. Although the narrator feels the sense of terror from the moment he entered the house, through the use of imagery, Poe is able to bring emotion to the reader. Throughout the passage, the author continues to build up the sense of terror by asserting the image and setting of both the passage and the atmosphere. For instance, he starts the passage by stating “a dull, dark, and a soundless day...clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens” (Poe 194). In relation to the previous quote, the quote illustrates the image of the atmosphere and the setting of the story. In particular, because Poe expresses the sense of terror by describing the atmosphere as dark, quiet, and gloomy, the reader can get an image of the surroundings and get the feeling of the darkness and horror. In addition, according to Poe, during the first glimpse of the house of Usher, the narrator describes it as gloomy and unpleasant. In particular, Poe states “the shades of the evening drew on… a sense of insufferable gloom” (Poe 194). Additionally, the description of the house adds on to the sense of terror that Poe established in the beginning of the story. Based on the past two quotes stated by the author, the reader can begin to picture a dark and dull day with a gloomy house adding on to the darkness. Lastly, in regards to Edgar Allan Poe, the house of Usher is

Faithful to the principles of the author, the first detailed words of description of the setting announce the decadent character of the composition- “All the main lines of action are supported by a systematic elaboration of detail” (Robinson, 79). The Fall of the House of Usher begins with the description of the place where all the facts of the story will develop: “It was a dark and soundless day near the end of the year, and clouds were hanging low in the heavens… through country with little life or beauty; and in the early evening I came within view of the House of Usher” (Poe, 22). At exterior levels, the presence of a crack crosses the whole structure of the house: “a crack making its way from the top down the wall until it became lost in the dark waters of the lake.” (Poe, 23). The dark aspect is present in the obscure interiors of the house: “Dark covering hung upon the walls. The many chairs and tables had been used for a long,

One of Roderick's fears was death. He was from a well-known and honored family, and he and his sister were the last of the long line of Usher descendants. His sister, Madeline, had been fighting a severe and long-continued illness for quite some time, which had added to much of Roderick's gloom. " Her decease, would leave him the last of the ancient race of the Ushers." Roderick seemed not only to fear the death of his sister and ultimately of himself, but also the uncertainty of the future. "I dread the events of the future, not only in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul."

In the story “ The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, has an American romanticism with its characters. Edgar Allan Poe is considered a Dark Romanticism because of the way he writes his poems and short stories centered around the concept of evil human nature, darkness, and death. Roderick and Madeline Usher were said to be related during the middle of the story; they were twins. It explained how they were sick, Roderick had a mental disorder and Madeline was physically sick. As the narrator enters the desolate house, he finds both Roderick and his sister in a severe state of depression and they both appear sick like. The narrator tries to make Roderick feel better, but Roderick wouldn’t budge. Roderick thinks that the house is making him sick and making him to appear crazy.

Roderick Usher is a victim of circumstance. The House he has known his whole life seems to have turned against him. Poe

Usher represents the inner self of Edgar A. Poe, he is the personality for which Poe knew, and possibly became. Poe quite possibly became Usher but he did not realize it until he re visited his inner self and mind. “Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting” (236). Roderick Usher can represent Poe’s madness, Poe knew him in the past but finally along his journey he is coming to terms with his insanity. Edgar is excepting his madness although he still is frightened by the truth. “The writer spoke of acute bodily illness-of a mental disorder which oppressed him-and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal friend” (236). Poe realized that his insanity did exist but he needed to address it and come to terms with it.

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.