What Is The Fall Of The House Of Usher's Madness

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

Roderick Usher, the head of the house, is and educated man. He comes from a wealty family and owns a huge house. He seemed to have once been an attractive man in the way the narrator described him to be. However, his appearance deteriorated over time. When the narrator finally saw Roderick, his appearance had completely altered. The narrator notes various symptoms of insanity from Roderick’s behavior: “in the manner of my friend I was struck with an incoherence and inconsitency...habitual trepidancy, and excessive nervous agitation...His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision...to that....of a lost drunkard, or the erreclaimable eater of opium”. Roderick’s state worsens throughout the story. He becomes increasingly restless and unstable, especially after the burial of his sister.

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.

Most times, anything abnormal or odd tend to be pushed under the rug. Edgar Allan Poe subtly brings attention to topics the are typically ignored. E. A. Poe had far from a perfect childhood. His father left when he was young and his mother died when he was three. Poe also seemed to have a lonely childhood after his parents were gone. He was separated from his relatives and didn’t appear to have many friends. He attended the army and after went into West Point. His academics there were well but he was eventually kicked out because of poor handlings of his duties. Before Poe died, he struggled with depression and a drinking problem. Some believe Poe’s tragic lifetime was the inspiration for some of his stories. Such as, “The Fall of the House of Usher”. A possible theory about this story is that Roderick and the Narrator were one in the same. This essay will discuss the possibility of them being the same through plot, characterization, and personification.

In the middle of the story, readers start to see clues that will eventually show that the Ushers will meet their demise due to their illnesses. For example, as the story progressed, one can see that Roderick Usher’s symptoms got worse. He started to hear things as well as see strange images. Usher tried his absolute best to get his friend to get better. He calmed him down with his favorite things like arts and crafts and reading. The narrator also started to get affected by Roderick’s illness. He felt he was also getting progressively worse. He would relate Roderick’s illness with other aspects and works he read. It was basically a struggle for survival in the house. It was not until the end that the narrator left and feared for his life. It creates that aspect of fear that is prevalent in horror stories. According to Dawn B. Sova, “The focus in this story is placed on the narrator’s perceptions and observations of a disintegrating intellect—of a crumbling Roderick Usher rather than a crumbling castle or abbey” (87). Because of their eventual changing, they provided readers with a clear

The Fall of the House of Usher opens with a description of the landscape that serves as foreshadowing to the deteriorating state, both mentally and physically, of Roderick Usher. The story opens and readers are first exposed to a description of the house: a dull grey, a color oftentimes utilized to set depressing mood. The physical landscape appears to be diseased and decaying as the narrator looks “upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows— upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul” (Poe 3). This description juxtaposes with the mental state that the narrator finds Roderick in.

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a story based on a family driven to madness. Throughout the story the reader sees evidence of a house that is a physically connected to the Usher family. The actual house is a alive and has a dependency on the Usher family to survive without the Usher family the house crumbles to dust. The actual house in "The Fall of the House of Usher" is directly connected to each individual "Usher" through a supernatural bond.

“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 short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe is about how a nameless narrator gets invited to come see his childhood friend. Because his childhood friend named Roderick Usher, is feeling emotionally and physically unwell, the narrator rushes to be with his friend. During the narrator’s stay at the house many strange things like noises and death begin to happen. Towards the end of the story the narrator begins to hallucinate being under the power of Roderick Usher and the house.

In the text “The Fall of the House of Usher” there are supernatural events throughout the short story. From the rapidly decaying house that is quite literally connected to the main character Roderick Usher, to the ghost of Roderick's twin sister Madeline. “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. This line gives us a hint from the title toward the supernatural link between the physical house collapsing and the metaphorical “fall” of the Usher Family. I believe Edgar Poe did this to evoke an uncanny feeling in the reader and to add to the sublime of the short story. This link between living and inanimate gives the story an extra gothic element. “There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold -- then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.” The supernatural element of Madeline “coming back from the dead” or being a ghost creates conflict within the plot and therefore leads to the inevitable fall of the Usher Family. I believe this ghostly figure struck fear into the reader creating a suspenseful follow up, allowing the imagination to take off and picture this supernatural occurrence. This was never an explained supernatural event. It was left up to the reader's imagination and their assumption as to what is real and what is a figment of the characters imagination. “There was a long and

First, in “The Fall of the House of Usher” the author uses Roderick Usher's transformation to create an atmosphere of fear reading

The narrator describes Roderick, the master of the House of Usher such: “….I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with an idea of simple humanity” hinting at the fact that Roderick in un-human. Roderick becomes depressed and starts to act in a possessed manner almost as if he were no longer entirely human but rather half-human and half something paranormal directing the reader to the un-human features that he possesses. At the end of this short story when the Usher estate is swallowed up by the tarn, which was previously described as sinister looking, implying that the tarn is a representation of the un-human aspects of Roderick and his family. Using various aspects of the background and plot Edgar Allen Poe directs the reader through the narration to the hints that Roderick is

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

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.