The Fall of the House of Usher; Edgar Allan Poe

Poe´s story The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) relates the story of one of the most famous heroes in Poe´s
writings: Roderick Usher. This is a tale where Poe is the physiognomist of the interior ( Bercovitch and Jehlen
(ed), 231 ). This is, Poe deals with the internal minds of the characters, mixing the atmosphere of the house
with the mind and the life of the people who live in Usher, the mansion.
In this paper I am going to deal with this short story. I will try to give some critics point of view and my
interpretation at the same time. For that, I divided the story in four parts, giving a brief summary of every part
and after that, the analysis of them.
But I think that the narrator makes the story different. As I will explain later on, he only tells the story, and
although he is one of the characters in it, he never participates; he never says anything for changing the main
line of the story. So, I think that he is quite important in the tale. Because of that, the first section will deal
with the narrator.
The first person narrative voice is the one who tells the story. We do not know anything about him: nor his
name, nor his physical aspect. We only know that the narrator is male: Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had
been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting (Poe, 117).
What happens to him?. Is he not important in the plot and maybe because of that, this character is not very
well developed?.
In all Poe´s short stories, the importance is in the plot, and not the characters. Poe had a great genius for plot,
but for characterization in the traditional sense he was very poor
equipped (Malin, 69). Poe is very good in narrating what happens in human minds, in characters´ psyche, but
not in humans´ looks − this is the reason why Poe is a physiognomist of the interior. Anyway, one of the main
features in short stories is that the characters cannot be developed as in a novel, because of the length of the
tale. So, there are two answers for the question I asked above.
But the narrator in this tale not only tells the story. We can learn the situation of the House of Usher through
his eyes and through his emotions. He is at the same time both the author of the story and, as spectator of its
events, the audience as well (Malin, 77). The narrator is also linked to Roderick Usher because they are friend.
The problem with this narrator is that although he sees, feels and participates in the events of the house and
the family he cannot explain why he is so afraid of the house, why he is so terrified there. Overpowered by an
intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste, (for I felt that I
should sleep no more during the night) and endeavoured to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into
which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apartment (Poe, 127) , An impressible tremour
gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an imbus of utterly causeless
alarm (Poe, 126).
This narrator does not give explanations of the problems inside the house and inside Roderick and Madeline
Usher. whereas in most of the short stories the narrator and the hero are one and the same, in this instance
some instinct told Poe not to cast the tale in this form. Here the story is told by a disinterested and impartial
observer, and as a result we see Usher from the outside, as a tortured and unbalanced man consumed by
irrational and melancholy fears (Hammond, 71−72).
This narrator has one mission for the reader: the reader is aligned with the consciousness of this visitor to the
House of Usher. Through this narrative technique, the reader, as the narrator will participate in the experience
of undefined evil. As I have said before, this narrator does not go beyond the appearances, he only lives the
experience (maybe because he is a guest in the house and he does not want to disturb trying to resolve the
problem of the House of Usher). The narrator of Usher observes Usher throughout the story at a diminishing
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distance from the latter´s increasing animation and disorder (Bercovitch and Jelen, 234).
As the narrator does not help to the reader for resolving the mystery of the house, Poe provides a lot of details
in the story that will solve (or try to solve) the mystery. We will discover them while analysing the story since
the beginning to the end. The story ends with the narrator preserving his individual identity by narrowly
escaping from the influence of this mysterious environment (Bercovitch and Jellen, 234).
I have divided Poe´s The Fall of the House of Usher in four parts for analysing it better. Firstly, I will provide
a short summary of every part, and then I am going to analyse every part.
1.ARRIVAL AT THE HOUSE OF USHER.
SUMMARY
The narrator approaches the House of Usher during the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn
of the year (Poe, 317). This house − property of his boyhood friend Roderick Usher − is very gloomy and
mysterious. The narrator writes that the house seems to have collected an evil and diseased atmosphere from
the decaying trees and murky ponds around it. He notes, however, that although the house itself is decaying in
pieces, the structure itself is fairly solid. There is only a small break in the front of the building from the roof
to the ground. The narrator reveals that he is to stay in this house because his friend, Roderick, sent him a
letter earnestly requesting his company. Roderick told the narrator in this letter that he was feeling bodily and
emotionally ill, so the narrator rushed to his house. The narrator also mentions that the Usher family, while an
ancient clan, never flourished. Only the member of the Usher family survived from generation to generation,
so they were all in a direct line of descendent without any siblings.
ANALYSIS
In the first part of the story, the narrator arrives to the House of Usher and he is narrating not only what he
sees in front of him, but his impressions. The details that are showed at the beginning are very important for
the development and understanding of the story. the clouds hung oppressively low in heavens (Poe, 317), and
as the shades of the evening drew on(Poe, 317) contribute to the gradual accumulation of tension, already at
the outset of the story the reader has a sense of a palpable, threatening presence which will gradually become
more menacing as the narrative proceeds (Hammond, 71).
The entire narrative has an atmosphere of horror. The description of the house, Roderick Usher and his
behaviour; the strange and cataleptic sister, the gloomy apartments, etc. The whole story is an example of
horror stories or Gothic stories. During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year,
when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, had been passing alone, on horseback, through a
singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within
view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was −−but, with the first glimpse of the building, a
sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of
that half−pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest
natural images of the desolate or terrible (Poe, 317).
Already in the first part of the story, the narrator establishes this atmosphere of doubt and misgiving, and he
also provides the reader the source of this atmosphere, the house. The narrator is shocked by the vision of the
house, but not because the house seems like if it was dead; he is impressed because the house is like
death−in−life. It looks like a dead house, but at the same time, some life (almost nothing) is inside it.
The name of the house is also the family the House of Usher − appellation which seemed to include, in the
minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the mansion (Poe, 319). Only two members of the
Usher family are alive, so, the house is the man, a representation of Roderick Usher; and of his sister also,
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who in her subsequent cataleptic state is neither living or dead. She is like the house, death−in−life.
The house is a metaphor for the family. All the elements that the narrator sees in the front of the house are
represented in Roderick and Madeleine Usher. I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its
principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity (Poe, 319). The family is very old as well, the
stem of the Usher race, all time honoured as it was(Poe, 318). The family and the house had lived in that
country for generations, but something happened inside the family, because there was not a big family. The
patrimony was inherited in one line, I mean, from parents to children, and not in parallel branches. The Usher
family tree had only one branch, the entire family lay in the direct line of descendent, and had always, with
very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain(Poe, 318). The problem the family had it was in their
minds: his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament
(Poe, 318). These illnesses of the Usher family through the generations are reflected in the house: Minute
fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web−work from the eaves. Yet all this was
apart from a extraordinary dilapidation (Poe, 319). Although these fungus covered all the front of the house −
as the mental illness of the family through generations − it was stood. Usher family, although with illness
were alive, as the house.
But the damage of the house can be seen If one person was very near of it. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing
observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in
front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the
tarn(Poe, 320). Apparently, the house is very good, without damages, but if a person − the narrator in this
case − goes closer and investigates the faade , he can see that an important fissure crosses the house from the
top to the bottom of it. This fissure symbolizes the mental illness of the family that goes to the top − the
ancient members of the Usher − to the bottom − the last survivors, and more recently, to lady Madeleine.
Also the narrator mentions the contradiction in the house no portion of the masonry had fallen; and there
appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition
of the individual stones (Poe, 319). The family during a lot of centuries, although the members of the family −
the individual stones − was damaged. As the narrator examines the building more closely, he is amazed to
perceive a contrast between, on the one hand, its antiquity and the crumbling condition of the individual
stones, and, on the other, the still perfect adaptation of parts (Malin, 81).
When the narrator sees the reflected house in the tarn, a feeling of fear appears to him. The house is very
strange, and the bizarre atmosphere is all around the mansion, but when he saw the house in the water, the
impression was bigger, with a shudder even more thrilling than before (Poe, 318). Of the two images
available, it is the shadow rather than the substance that proves to be the more terrifying (Malin, 79). With
this paradox of fear for the reflection and not for the real image, the narrator indicates that what he is going to
narrate concerns the terror of the soul (Malin, 80) The reflection in the water is the same house, but from a
different perspective, as if it was its shadow. In Ancient times, the shadow was the soul, and this is why the
narrator has more fear of the shadow than to the real building; the shadow, the soul, the reflection, etc. hide
more secrets and more terror than the real image.
But now, the narrator goes into the house, and he is going to see his friend, Roderick Usher, after a lot of
years.
2. INSIDE THE HOUSE.THE STORY BEFORE LADY MADELEINE´S DEATH.
SUMMARY
The inside of the house is just as spooky as the outside. The narrator makes his way through the long passages
and to the room where Roderick is waiting. The narrator notes that his friend is paler and less energetic than
he once was. Roderick tells the narrator that he suffers from nerves and fear. His senses are heightened. The
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narrator also notes that Roderick seems afraid of his own house. Further, Roderick´s sister, Madeleine Usher
has taken ill with a mysterious illness that the doctors cannot even identify. The narrator proceeds to spend
several days trying to cheer Roderick. He listens to Roderick playing the guitar (and makes up words for his
songs), he reads to Roderick, he sits with him for hours. Still, he cannot lift his sadness. Soon Roderick posits
his theory that the house is unhealthy, just as the narrator had supposed at the beginning of the story.
ANALYSIS
[the narrator]he has left everyday life behind him when he enters upon a scene in which decay and death are
the presiding elements(Malin, 79).
When the narrator goes into the house, it seems like the faade he had left behind It is a journey into the
narrator´s mental world (Hammond, 73). Inside the house Gothic archway of the hall, many dark and
intricate passages, sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors (Poe, 320). Everything is
dead, but the narrator feels these things very familiar. I had been accustomed from my infancy − while I
hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this − I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the
fancies which ordinary images were stirring up (Poe, 320). So, for the narrator, everything into the house is
familiar, although the atmosphere there was as if everything was dead. Probably, because he knew the house
before, because Roderick Usher and he were friends when they were children. But it can be, on the other
hand, that the furniture and the architecture of the house were fashionable in that period, so the narrator´s
house could be similar.
As I have said before, the house represents both, Roderick and Madeleine. The first person the narrator meets
is the master of the House of Usher, and, as the house, he represents a decay, an almost−dead. Around him, an
atmosphere of death is present. As representative persons of the illness of the family and the fall of the house,
Roderick and his sister, lady Madeleine, suffer from mental illness, although Madeleine´s health is in a worst
condition. The narrator, as he made in front of the house − he approached to the house and he saw the fissure
that crosses the whole house, symbolizing the damages the house has −approaches more and more to
Roderick´s inside, and he discovers that the master also has a fissure. He is not only as de used to be when
children it was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with
the companion of my early boyhood(Poe, 321), but he also suffers his family disease, he entered, at some
length , into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family
evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy − a mere nervous affection, he immediately added,
which would undoubtedly soon pass of (Poe, 322).
Roderick´s disease is attributed to the house by himself, to the atmosphere where he lives, the very house. He
is afraid of his own house, he was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling
which hr tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth an influence which some
peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion had, by dint of long sufferance, he said,
obtained over his spirit (Poe, 323). But, however, other reason for this mental disorder is the incurable illness
of his sister, much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and for
more palpable origin − to the severe and long−continued illness − indeed to the evidently approaching
dissolution − of a tenderly beloved sister (Poe, 323). Both causes are the reason of Roderick´s disease.
Usher family survived a long time because of incestuous relationships between the members of the family, we
can say this because the narrator, at the beginning of the story says the entire family lay in the direct line of
descendent (Poe, 318). Roderick and Madeleine cannot go on with the family because of her terrible disease,
so Roderick is becoming crazy: the name of Usher is going to die.
Inside the house, when the narrator sees Roderick´s sister − lady Madeleine − he feels fear. Not with
Roderick; he was altered after all those years, but with Madeleine was different I regarded her with an utter
astonishment not unmingled with dread − and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A
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sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps (Poe, 323). The narrator felt
almost the same when he sees Roderick and his sister as when he saw the house for the first time and its
reflection in the water, the two, the twin sister and the reflected house, represent the dark, under side of
Usher´s mind, the depths which cannot plainly be ´read´, and which are nonetheless forcibly exist. And
therein also is the source of the man´s fatal malady (Malin, 83).
At the end of the story, the water swallows the house; at the same time, Madeleine kills her brother. The
parallelism between both is clear. But I will talk about it in the last chapter.
A very important theme in this second part is art and literature. The narrator tries to dissuade the master of the
house from his melancholy by reading books. But all the books Mr. Usher loves − there is a whole paragraph
in page 328 enumerating titles and authors − affect them negatively I could not help thinking of the wild ritual
of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac (Poe, 328). In his writings Poe returned
again and again to the theme of the transience of art, and it is possible to discern in ´Usher ´a restatement of
this idée fixe. The mansion occupied by Roderick Usher is a symbol of the impermanence of literature and the
arts (Hammond, 72). All the books enumerated in the story are the books that are not fashionable in Poe´s
time, and this is a way to criticise them. By reading such books, he had a bad influence on him, and the
narrator tries to say that his behaviour is lead by his reading. Bad books − and bad literature − can change our
minds.
Bur Roderick Usher not only reads, but he sings and paints. Into the story there is a song called The Haunted
Palace, where the story of the house − and the family − is narrated. In the song, it is said that the palace was
radiant, glorious, etc. But everything changed But evil things, in robes of sorrow / assailed the monarch´s high
estate (Poe, 326). These evil things can be both, his sister´s illness and the fear he has in the house, in his own
house.
However, the most impacting piece of art Roderick made was the prophetic picture he painted. The narrator
says: if ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher (Poe, 324). After that, the narrator
describes what Roderick painted as A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and
rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption of device. Certain
accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth
below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch or other
artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole
in a ghastly and inappropriate splendour (Poe, 325). I called it prophetic because it represents the
subterranean vault in which the body of his sister will be placed. And the atmosphere of horror that the
narrator wants to describe during the story, goes on with the description of the picture. Through the repetition
of details Poe succeeds in charging the ´atmosphere´ of the story the very stones of the house are sentient, and
together with the decayed trees, the network of fungi on the exterior of the building, and the reduplication of
all this is the stagnant waters of the tarn, the unholy atmosphere has been engendered. As I have said before
in this paper, as the narrator does not tell us the whole story − because he is not an omniscient narrator − Poe
gives a lot of details in the story for creates that atmosphere of horror.
3. MADELEINE´S DEATH AND HER ENTOMBMENT.
SUMMARY
Soon, Madeleine dies, and Roderick decides to bury her temporarily in the tombs below the house. He wants
to do this because he is afraid that the doctors might dig up her body for scientific examinations (since her
disease was so strange for them). The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb. He notes that she has
rosy cheeks, as some do after death. Roderick then confides to the narrator that he and Madeleine were twins.
Over the next few days, Roderick becomes even more uneasy. Then, one night, the narrator cannot sleep
either. Roderick knocks on his door, apparently hysterical. He leads the narrator to the window, from where
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they can see a bright−looking gas all around the house. The narrator explains the gas by telling him that it is a
natural phenomenon that is not altogether uncommon. The narrator decides to read Roderick in order to pass
the night away. He reads the Mad Trist of Sir Launcelot Canning. As he reads, he hears noises that correspond
to the description in the book. At first, he ignores these sounds as his imagination. But soon he can no longer
ignore the sounds; they have become more distinct. He also notices that Roderick has slumped over in his
chair and is muttering to himself.
ANALYSIS
Lady Madeleine dies, but this is what Roderick says, it is not sure she is dead. Roderick Usher knows that his
sister is very ill and there are no more members of the Usher family to go on with the name. Also, incest
between them is useless, because that nervous exhaustion is hereditary . Therefore, not only in this generation
unwell, but other generations have also been diseased. They must die. He had painted the prophetic picture
that seemed like Madeleine tomb, and he will entomb her.
He need the help of the narrator, and as I have said before, this narrator only tells what happens in the house,
without taking part, so, when Roderick asks him to help to entomb his sister, he said: The worldly reason,
however, assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute (Poe, 328).
They entombed Madeleine within the house for two reasons: The brother had been led to his resolution (so he
told me) by consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and
eager inquiries on the part of the medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial−ground
of the family (Poe, 328). As Malin observes, it is interred within the house so that there will be no risk of
ghoul´s prying open the coffin(Malin, 84). Otherwise, doctors could notice that the girl is not dead, and they
would try to reanimate her.
Lady Madeleine would not be dead, because of the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and
the suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip is so terrible in death (Poe, 329).Lady Madeleine suffered by
cataleptical moments because of her disease and maybe he would be in this state in the moment of her
entombment. Only at the end of the story we know that Madeleine was not dead. But at the same time, she
would be a ghost, and everything would be a superstitious reason the illness of this story, as well as some of
the natural phenomena, explore the theme of science versus superstition. Poe plays with this opposition,
questioning how many of the strange things in life can be explained away by −−>science[Author:Z2]
(www.Thespark.com).
Science versus superstition question remains an open one, because it is hard to know whether Madeleine
actually fought her way out of the tomb alive after several days or whether she is a ghost that both men see. In
The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick Usher is the superstitious part, and the narrator always tries to
explain everything by science. As, for example, the night when Roderick went to the narrator´s room because
none of them could sleep. Roderick was afraid of the strange gas around the mansion − the unnatural light of
a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion
(Poe, 331) − but the narrator calmed him saying These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely
electrical phenomena not uncommon − or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of
the tarn (Poe, 331).
Generally speaking, the narrator represents a scientific standpoint, he believes dismisses his own superstitious
thoughts as a ´dream´. In contrast, Roderick acts as one who believes in the supernatural. At the end of this
third part − when the narrator reads to Roderick Mad Trist by Sir Launcelot Canning − the contrast
superstition / science is more pronounced. While the narrator is reading, everything that the tale narrates
(noises in the forest, cries and so on) is heard in the house, it appeared to me that, from some very remote
portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of
character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir
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Launcelot had so particularly described (Poe, 332−333).
While the narrator is reading and realizing what is happening, nothing is said about Roderick. Only when the
narrator stops reading, he sees Roderick I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly
before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity (Poe, 334). Roderick feels
fear, he is petrified, but the narrator thinks that the noises must be made by the storm, or they have in his
mind, It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention (Poe, 333). However,
Roderick has sensitive nervousness (Poe, 333).
But this nervousness in Roderick started after Madeleine´s burial. When he and the narrator put her body into
the donjon Roderick started behaving in a different way, And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed,
an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had
vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with
hurried, unequal, and objectless step (Poe, 329−330). His nervousness can be because of he knows that his
sister is alive or because he is very sad of her sudden − although expected − death. After reading the end of
the story, I think that he is nervous because she is still alive in the donjon.
The death of Madeleine would be his own death. He knew it, and he was very nervous. From the beginning he
knew that he would die by fear, and it will be so. But his sister death would leave him (him the hopeless and
the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Usher (Poe, 323). He knew his death was near, so he felt fear. But
at the same time, although the narrator does not know it, he could feel fear because he heard the noises of his
sister trying to go out of the donjon.
4. WE HAVE PUT HER LIVING IN THE TOMB.
SUMMARY
The narrator goes over to him and listens to what he is saying. Roderick reveals that he has been hearing these
sounds for days and believes that he and the narrator buried his sister alive and that she is trying to get out. He
yells that she is standing behind the door. The winds blows the door open and confirms Roderick´s fears: his
sister stands in white robes bloodied from her struggle. She attacks her brother as the life drains from her, and
he dies of fear. The narrator flees from the house. As he does, the entire house cracks along the zigzag break
in the frame and crumples to the ground.
ANALYSIS
In bringing about the premature burial of his sister, who was his twin and counterpart, he was seeking his
own death. His condition is accordingly like that of his sister, as she lies in the vault, midway between life and
death. She returns from her grave only to take him with her and to complete the total extinction of the house
of Usher (Malin, 84−85).
They are twins and it is an important feature of the tale. They must die together, but not only them but the
house − as I have said before, the name is both, the family and the house, and they will disappear together.
Lady Madeleine would not die alone. She appears in white with blood, because during all those days, she
were struggling in the donjon, trying to go out of there.
The contemplation of women drove Poe to a kind of madness. On the one hand he thought female beauty the
greatest beauty but his admiration was tinged with the morbid qualification that the death of a beautiful
woman was the most beautiful fact and concept of all (Donaldson and Massa, 92). The narrator never says that
lady Madeleine was beautiful, but only when she is dead, the narrator describes the pink colour of her face
and bosom, and her smile.
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Donaldson and Massa go on and the say: in Poe´s fiction, women become potential vampires, evil Eves, to be
destroyed at all costs (Donaldson and Massa, 92). Lady Madeleine could appear like a ghost, dressed in white,
pale and so on, but she appears with red blood covered her dress, like an evil Eve, as these critics say. As she
is the evil in the story, she is the bad character, the one who is going to finish with her brother and with the
name of Usher.
In the last paragraph of the story, the narrator is out of the house. He is seeing how the house breaks and
disappears into the tarn. There are some parallelisms in the story:
At the beginning, the narrator sees the house, and its reflection in the water. They are the same, but one is
more shocking than the other − the reflected house is worst, it gives more panic than the other.
Later, when the narrator knows that the dead sister and Roderick were twins − Roderick Usher told him − , he
sees the same face in both brothers. In this case, his sister is more shocking, gives more fear than Roderick −
as the reflected house.
Later in the story, both reflections − the house in the tarn and Madeleine, as the reflection of Roderick − will
be the ones that swallow the other images: Roderick and the real house. As if , as I have said, the images were
the souls, or the supernatural world, they will be the causes of the fall of the house of Usher.
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Analysing The Fall of the House of Usher
Note from www.thespark.com
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