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Analysis: The Fall of the House of Usher

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, Úsherµbears 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 ýµ·s in the first two words contrasted with the hard, cutting

ćµ·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:




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 Úsher.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 ÝOU ARE IN A HORROR

STORY.µ The dank underground tomb is yet another of the masterfully-crafted mini-settings in Úsher,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).




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




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.




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




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.




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.




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




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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