analysis the fall of the house of usher
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The Fall of the House of Usher
Writing Style
Rhythmic, Ornate
Poe·s prose is known for being a tad over-the-top, a bit melodramatically macabre. And indeed, ´Usherµbears the marks of this authorial stamp. But before you condemn it for its theatricality, take a moment to
admire its nearly-poetic rhetoric. Check out ´singularly dreary tract of countryµ in the first sentence. Read it
out loud and notice the weight and length of the ´yµ·s in the first two words contrasted with the hard, cutting
´cµ·s of the second two. Or jump to the last sentence and read ´the DEEP and DARK tarn at my feet closed
SULLENLY and SILENTLY over the fragments of the ¶House of Usher.·µ And there·s a cartload of rhetoric
gems to be found in between.
The ´Fall of the House of Usherµ is a short story containing many literary elements. The following are several
examples of literary devices used with in the story.
There is an obvious parallel between the title of the story and the family name. Families are often referred toas houses, or households, and there is the obvious literal home that the Usher family lives it. There are alsotwo falls in the story, one being the last two family member of the Usher family die, and the storm also breaksapart the literal house.
The physical house is a symbol of Rederick. The follow chart is a diagram of the symbolism:
House Rederick Vacant Eye like Windows Luminous Eye gone out - vacantBleak Walls
Pallid Dead like SkinFungus on Wall ² wild Wild untamed Hair
Stones on house decaying, but house still there He·s loosing it, but still alive
Looks older than actually Looks older than actually Evil atmosphere around House ² no connection
w/ heavenSees self as evil ² no connection w/ heaven
Rotting in Isolation ² no fresh air Self-Imprisoned ² No outside airCracked ²obvious Roger·s Mental State- intolerable agitation of fearCan·t Forget ² Very Shocking
Can·t Forget ² Very Shocking
The Painting and the plot of the story also share similarities. The Vault in the painting is symbolic of
Madeline·s coffin, they are both deep underground, and there is no way for light to get in yet it is still there.
(In the painting we can still see the scene although without light that would be impossible, and Madeline is
still alive (life being paralleled with light.))
The Song and Rederick also share parallels. Rederick·s story goes with the song, he use to be happy andsmart, and then his mental sickness (hypochondria) took over rand he goes crazy/becomes strange. Thesickness and evil can be seen as one.
The Kingdom and his mind also share similarities in that before they were good, and presently they have
become negative:
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Good (Before) Negative (Now)-Thought and reason use to rule his brain
-The banners were his hair
-Use to be Gentle Air
-Nothing wrong with life
-People saw as good
-Singing Beautifully
-Fine! OK! Person
-An evil thing hurts his mind
-His Glory is gone
-Song no longer harmonious
-Become Bad
-Evil laugh at end ² not good
The Ethelred Story is also related to the plot of Madeline·s Escape. In the story the door was beaten down
and there was wood splitting, wood was also split as Madeline escaped from her coffin. In the door a dragon
screams and the iron door squeaks as Madeline leaves. In the story the shield falls on the floor, and asMadeline is leave she stumps in the archway.
Madeline and Roderick also parallel as one person they come together Madeline being the physical sickness,and Roderick being the mental part.
Pathetic Fallacy is used as the narrator is approaching the house with the dark, low and oppressive clouds are
described. As the situation inside the house the weather/storm becomes progressively worse. At the end the
storm wakes them up and the narrator and the Usher are scared so they go to read, and finally in the end atthe of the story the last paragraph is the climax of the storm and story. Nature is evil and angry and they destroy the house, Madeline and Usher.
There are three common interpretations to see the story: 1) the story shows what happens with Man fallsfrom God, 2) the story shows the consequences of incest, and 3) the story shows the victory of the irrational
psyche ² when rational and irrational fight and one ultimately wins.
The Fall of the House of Usher Setting
Where It All Goes Down
Haunted Mansion, Several Dark and Stormy Nights
(To be fair, this was probably less of a cliché when Poe wrote ´Usher.µ) Notice that we don·t know the
geographical location nor a specific year when these events go down. The fact is, the mood and atmosphere
in the setting is far more important than the facts of time and place. And it certainly is a powerful atmospherethat Poe creates. The outside of the mansion is the first of many spooky settings Poe renders in his tale.
You·ve got an ethereal glowing cloud and a dark and scary lake, not to mention the ominous fissure running
down the center of the mansion. He creates a different but equally scary setting inside the mansion, where the
corridors, though filled with seemingly ordinary objects, seem to scream ´YOU ARE IN A HORROR
STORY.µ The dank underground tomb is yet another of the masterfully-crafted mini-settings in ´Usher,µ one
we actually recognize from the Roderick·s painting earlier in the text (make sure you check out ´Symbols,
Imagery, Allegoryµ for some juicy, painting-related thoughts).
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The house itself is carefully crafted to heighten the mood and atmosphere of the story, like the creepy
tapestries and furnishings inside. The fact that Usher hasn·t left the house in ages lends the tale a sense of
claustrophobia. In fact, the narrator himself doesn·t leave until the story·s end ² which makes us, the reader,
feel just as trapped as Roderick. The house·s sentience is also a big deal ² the physical setting of the story is as
supernatural as its action and themes. Then there·s the fall of the house itself, which we discuss in ´What·sUp With the Title?µ
First Person (Peripheral Narrator)
The narrator is nameless, which suggests that his principal job is to narrate. We don·t know much about him,
and our attention is drawn instead to the strangeness going down in the House of Usher; it·s the narrator·s
place to take us on a tour of the Mansion de Fear.
One of the most interesting things this narrator does is insist, over and over again, that all attempts to
accurately portray the weird happenings of the House of Usher are essentially futile. Observe:
«an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated . (12)
I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me .
(16)
I would in vain endeavour to educe more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words . (16)
I lack words to express the full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion . (20)
It·s almost like he·s trying to make a point here. Poe renders his story even more horrifying, even more
bizarre, by claiming that it·s even scarier and crazier than it sounds in his story. Whatever the narrator says
was going on, take his word for it ² what actually went down was worse.
You might want to think about the implications of this given that the narrator at one point reads aloud to
Usher from a book and that the fictional sounds are manifested in reality. Here the narrator is insisting that
words cannot describe reality« and yet the words he reads aloud to Usher come true! In fact, these fictional
words he reads are prophetic. This is similar to the way that Usher predicts his own death early in the
narrator·s tale. You might also want to think about the prophetic nature of narration in this text, given that
Usher foretells his own death. We·ll talk about this more in Symbols, Imagery, Allegory.
Analysis
´The Fall of the House of Usherµ possesses the quintessential -features of the Gothic tale: a haunted house,
dreary landscape, mysterious sickness, and doubled personality. For all its easily identifiableGothic elements,
however, part of the terror of this story is its vagueness. We cannot say for sure where in the world or exactly
when the story takes place. Instead of standard narrative markers of place and time, Poe uses traditional
Gothic elements such as inclement weather and a barren landscape. We are alone with the narrator in this
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haunted space, and neither we nor the -narrator know why. Although he is Roderick·s most intimate boyhood
friend, the narrator apparently does not know much about him³like the basic fact that Roderick has a twin
sister. Poe asks us to question the reasons both for Roderick·s decision to contact the narrator in this time of
need and the bizarre tenacity of narrator·s response. While Poe provides the recognizable building blocks of
theGothic tale, he contrasts this standard form with a plot that is inexplicable, sudden, and full of unexpected
disruptions. The story begins without complete explanation of the narrator·s motives for arriving at the house
of Usher, and this ambiguity sets the tone for a plot that continually blurs the real and the fantastic.
Poe creates a sensation of claustrophobia in this story. The narrator is mysteriously trapped by the lure of
Roderick·s attraction, and he cannot escape until the house of Usher collapses completely. Characters cannot
move and act freely in the house because of its structure, so it assumes a monstrous character of its own³the
Gothic mastermind that controls the fate of its inhabitants. Poe, creates confusion between the living things
and inanimate objects by doubling the physical house of Usher with the genetic family line of the Usher
family, which he refers to as the house of Usher. Poe employs the word ´houseµ metaphorically, but he also
describes a real house. Not only does the narrator get trapped inside the mansion, but we learn also that this
confinement describes the biological fate of the Usher family. The family has no enduring branches, so all
genetic transmission has occurred incestuously within the domain of the house. The peasantry confuses the
mansion with the family because the physical structure has effectively dictated the genetic patterns of the
family.
The claustrophobia of the mansion affects the relations among characters. For example, the narrator realizes
late in the game that Roderick and Madeline are twins, and this realization occurs as the two men prepare to
entomb Madeline. The cramped and confined setting of the burial tomb metaphorically spreads to the
features of the characters. Because the twins are so similar, they cannot develop as free individuals. Madeline
is buried before she has actually died because her similarity to Roderick is like a coffin that holds her identity.
Madeline also suffers from problems typical for women in -nineteenth--century literature. She invests all of
her identity in her body, whereas Roderick possesses the powers of intellect. In spite of this disadvantage,
Madeline possesses the power in the story, almost superhuman at times, as when she breaks out of her tomb.
She thus counteracts Roderick·s weak, nervous, and immobile disposition. Some scholars have argued that
Madeline does not even exist, reducing her to a shared figment Roderick·s and the narrator·s imaginations.
But Madeline proves central to the symmetrical and claustrophobic logic of the tale. Madeline stifles Roderick
by preventing him from seeing himself as essentially different from her. She completes this attack when she
kills him at the end of the story.
Doubling spreads throughout the story. The tale highlights the Gothic feature of the doppelganger, or
character double, and portrays doubling in inanimate structures and literary forms. The narrator, for example,
first witnesses the mansion as a reflection in the tarn, or shallow pool, that abuts the front of the house. The
mirror image in the tarn doubles the house, but upside down³an inversely symmetrical relationship that also
characterizes the relationship between Roderick and Madeline.
The story features numerous allusions to other works of literature, including the poems ´The Haunted
Palaceµ and ´Mad Tristµ by Sir Launcelot Canning. Poe composed them himself and then fictitiously
attributed them to other sources. Both poems parallel and thus predict the plot line of ´The Fall of the House
of Usher.µ ´Mad Trist,µ which is about the forceful entrance of Ethelred into the dwelling of a hermit,
mirrors the simultaneous escape of Madeline from her tomb. ´Mad Tristµ spookily crosses literary borders, as
though Roderick·s obsession with these poems ushers their narratives into his own domain and brings them
to life.
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The crossing of borders pertains vitally to the Gothic horror of the tale. We know from Poe·s experience in
the magazine industry that he was obsessed with codes and word games, and this story amplifies his obsessive
interest in naming. ´Usherµ refers not only to the mansion and the family, but also to the act of crossing a -
threshold that brings the narrator into the perverse world of Roderick and Madeline. Roderick·s letter ushers
the narrator into a world he does not know, and the presence of this outsider might be the factor that
destroys the house. The narrator is the lone exception to the Ushers· fear of outsiders, a fear that accentuates
the claustrophobic nature of the tale. By undermining this fear of the outside, the narrator unwittingly brings
down the whole structure. A similar, though strangely playful crossing of a boundary transpires both in ´Mad
Tristµ and during the climactic burial escape, when Madeline breaks out from death to meet her mad brother
in a ´tryst,µ or meeting, of death. Poe thus buries, in the fictitious gravity of a medieval romance, the puns
that garnered him popularity in America·s magazines.
Reality and Art
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
You might have noticed a strange mingling of the fictional with the real in this story. Roderick·s artistic
creations have a definite connection with what happens to the House of Usher. He paints an underground
tomb; Madeline is entombed underground. He sings about the decline of a house; the House of Usher
declines. He screams that the dead Madeline is standing at the door ² and so she is at the door. In fact, way
back the beginning of the story Roderick declares that will die from fear, which in fact comes true at the end
of the tale.
One possibility is that Roderick, with his magic, lustrous eye, can foresee the future. He knows these events
will transpire and so he prophecies them aloud. Another possibility is that Roderick actually causes these
things to happen, so that he is consumed by fear he manifests his fear in reality, along with the help of some
magic pixie dust from his haunted mansion.
Doubling
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
We·ve seen that art mirrors reality in this story, but there are several other cases of ´doublingµ or ´reflectionµ
going on. Starting off the story is the inverted reflection of the House of Usher in the tarn that lies before the
house. You·ve also got the inverted dichotomy between Madeline and Usher, twins, but male/female,
mental/physical (see ́ Character Analysisµ), alive/dead. Dichotomy means a division between two opposing
things.
What·s Up With the Ending?
Let·s talk about the freaky scene BEFORE the ending before we talk about the actual ending. First, Madeline
is back from the dead. There are several different ways to think about this reappearance, which we talk about
in ´Character Analysis.µ It could be that Madeline·s ghost is back to take vengeance on her brother for
intentionally burying her alive. It could be that she and Roderick are really two halves of the same person, and
so one cannot live without the other. It could be that she is a manifestation of Roderick·s fears, not an
honest-to-goodness ´ghost.µ
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Then you·ve got Roderick·s death. Remember that he predicted his death earlier in the text, and supposed
that it would be caused by fear. This is good evidence for the argument that Madeline is just a manifestation
of his fears. As we discuss in ´What·s Up With the Title?µ, Roderick·s literal fall to the floor is tantamount to
the fall of the Usher bloodline, and is accompanied by the physical fall of the house itself.
Now onto the final line of the story. If you·re reading ´Usherµ online, or if you·ve got a less-than-accuratehard copy in your hands, you might be missing the idiosyncrasy of the last line, which Poe wrote like this:
´[«] and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the ¶HOUSE
OF USHER.·µ (42)
Those are not our capitals; they were part of Poe·s text, and they·re definitely not easy to nail down. Why
would he put these words in capitals and in quotes?
Quotes generally indicate that you·re using someone else·s terminology rather than your own; there·s a sense
of irony, as opposed to genuine intention. Recall that in ´What·s Up With the Epigraphµ we discuss the
possibility that this entire work is fiction by the deranged mind of Roderick Usher. If this is the case, then wecan rationalize the formatting of these final few words. The text revealed that the peasants around the estate
coined the name ´House of Usherµ to refer both to the mansion and to the family who owned it. Either to
Roderick Usher or to the narrator ² whoever you think composed the tale ² this phase belongs to someone
else; it is not his own, and he uses quotes to indicate as much. What we mean is that the quotes emphasize the
artificiality of this phrase. The phrase is used as though it belongs to someone else.
As far as capitals go, we can·t tell you definitively. From one perspective, it adds a gravity and ominousness to
the very definitive ending: just imagine a deep, movie-announcer voice booming, ´THE HOUSE OF
USHER.µ On the other hand, it could be ironic melodrama, though we find this interpretation less likely
given that Poe was really all about the theatricality. (Melodramatic means overly dramatic, and most of Poe·s
stories are full of it.) Read any Poe story ² or just read ´Usher,µ and this will be painfully obvious.
The Fall of the House of Usher Plot Analysis
Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication,climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some
spice.
Initial Situation
The narrator arrives at a creepy house«
Much of this stage has to do with the house itself, rather than Usher or his sister. The narrator notes the
house's gloomy atmosphere and seemingly supernatural spook.
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Conflict
Usher is sick; the narrator is supposed to help.
Usher·s illness is mysterious and potentially deadly. Suspense builds when he prophesizes his own death from
sheer fear.
Complication
Madeline and the house·s sentience
Madeline complicates matters in that she provides another possible source for Roderick·s madness. Her
illness is equally mysterious, and her death and burial are additional spook factors. That Roderick thinks his
mansion is sentient also adds to the growing list of supernatural superstitions dominating the plot.
Climax
Usher freaks out, Madeline appears in the doorway
All those eerie sounds and superstitious feelings have been leading up to this moment. Usher·s prophesies
about his own death come true as he dies of fear.
Suspense
The narrator flees the house
We are as frightened as the narrator at this point. His flight from the house of Usher is full of heart-thumping
suspense.
Denouement
The House of Usher Falls
Man, we didn·t see that coming. This is FALLING ACTION taken quite literally. With the demise of the
physical house and the demise of the bloodline, this story is pretty much done.
Conclusion
The silent waters of the tarn
The House of Usher is totally gone; there·s not even any evidence that it once stood there.
What·s Up With the Epigraph?
Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entrée of a story. They illuminate important aspects of thestory, and they get us headed in the right direction.
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S on coeur est un luth suspendu;
S itot qu'on le touche il resonne .
² De Beranger
Translation:
"His/her heart is a poised lute;as soon as it is touched, it resounds".
These lines are a quote from L e Refus , a song by French songwriter Pierre-Jean de Béranger, a (roughly
speaking) contemporary of Poe·s. Beranger·s lyrics actually read "Mon cur" (my heart), but Poe changed
them to read "Son cur" (his/her heart).
The first question to ask is, who wrote this epigraph? Typically, an epigraph is the author·s opportunity to
give a hint to his reader as to how to interpret the work. But as we·ve seen in this text (check out Symbols,
Imagery, and Allegory), the real and the fictional are often intertwined. One possibility, then, is that the
epigraph is the work of the narrator.
If this is the case, we then have to ask to whom the lyrics refer. ´Sonµ is the possessive article in French, and
it could mean ´hisµ or ´herµ depending on the subject. In this case, our subject is gender-ambiguous. Is the
narrator referring to Roderick? Or to Madeline? If you believe the argument (as discussed in ´Character
Analysisµ) that the twins share some sort of other-worldly connection, or that they are two halves of the same
person, then the gender-ambiguity is appropriate, as the epigraph can refer to both Madeline and Roderick
together.
Another interesting, if slightly harder-to-swallow interpretation is that Usher wrote the epigraph ² because
Usher wrote the story. What are we given throughout the entire story except example after example of
Roderick·s eerie artistic creations? Together, he and the narrator listen to music, read books, and pore over
artwork. Accordingly, we see one of Usher·s songs, and one of his paintings, but we don·t see a piece of his
writing. Unless, that is, ́ The House of Usherµ is that very fictional work we·re missing.
Anyway, what does the epigraph actually mean? These lines describe a heart so alone that it is poised and
ready for touch, and so sensitive that it will resound the moment it is. Recall the story·s theme of isolation as
well as Roderick·s ´acuteness of the sensesµ and try running with that.
What·s Up With the Title?
There are several levels on which we can interpret this title. First is the actual, physical House of Usher, the
mansion the narrator visits and the setting for the story. At the end of the story, the House of Usher falls,literally, into the tarn or pool of water in front of the house. As we discuss in ´Symbols, Imagery, and
Allegory,µ the small fissure that the narrator sees upon first arrival foreshadows this fall. We know there·s
something wrong in the House of Usher, and it is indeed at this fissure that the House ultimately splits in
two.
We can move on to the symbolic meaning of the title. The narrator makes a point of telling us that the term
´The House of Usherµ refers no only to the estate, but to the family as well, the Usher bloodline. The title
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refers not just to the literal fall of the physical house, but the metaphorical fall of the Usher family. The
narrator revealed that Roderick and his sister were the last two alive in the family, so when they die, so dies
the whole family.
This decline, too, is foreshadowed in the text. Usher prophecies his own death to the narrator in exactly the
manner it takes place: he believes he will die from fear. It·s worth noting that Roderick·s death is yet anotherliteral fall ² he and Madeline collapse to the ground together.
It·s probably no coincidence that Roderick literally falls, the bloodline falls in the death of the twins, and the
house collapses all at the same time at the story·s conclusion. This contributes to the story·s fantastical nature.
The pieces fit together just a little too neatly; symbols are tied to action a bit too strongly, reminding us that
we·re not in a realistic world here. Also remember Roderick·s insistence that the house is sentient ² there·s a
stronger tie between the Usher family and the Usher mansion than we might expect. You could think of the
house as a third member of the Usher family: Roderick, Madeline, and the House. Or you could think of
Roderick, Madeline, and the house as all being part of the same person (see ´Character Analysisµ where we
discuss the theory that Roderick and Madeline share one soul).
Questions
1. Some scholars have criticized this story for being too typically Poe, basically filled with stock stereotypical characters you can find in all his stories. See, e.g., Edgar Allan Poe: A S tudy in Genius by
Joseph Wood Krutch. Does this seem like a reasonable critique?
2. We don·t get too much info about the narrator himself; what effect does this have on the way weread the story?
3. What instances of foreshadowing can you find in this tale? Start with the title«
4. ´Usherµ is generally considered Poe·s best short story. What makes it so worthy of such a title?
5. Why do people like horror stories so much? (No, seriously«why?)
6. Poe·s narrators are often deranged murderers or crazy men«like Roderick Usher. Why do you think he chose to have a nameless, sane narrator tell this tale, rather than Usher himself? (Of course, as weposit in this guide, you could argue that Usher really does tell the tale«in disguise. See ´What·s Up
With the Epigraphµ and ́ Symbols, Imagery, Allegory.µ)
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