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Symbolism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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Joshua Pellecchia The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is considered one of his best works. The success of this story is due to his use of allusion, symbolism, and irony to establish an eerie setting where the tragedy of the Usher family could horrifically transpire. Allusion to real-life texts and musical compositions work hand-in-hand with his use of irony and symbolism to foreshadow the fates of Roderick and Madeline Usher, and that of the house itself. These elements Poe employs to guide the story work so well together to create an enveloping story rich with tension and looming horror that it has to be one of Poe’s greatest works. Symbolism through setting is how Poe mainly reveals the story to the reader, but he never revealing too much; success of this story can be accredited to his ample use of symbolism, while still leaving a lot to be questioned. The setting Poe gives the House of Usher is a key element for foreshadowing the fate and condition of Roderick Usher and his manor. The unnamed narrator’s journey to the House of Usher is one described as: “a soundless day when the clouds hung oppressively in the heavens...in a dreary tract of country...found myself upon the melancholy house of usher” (). Upon …show more content…

Where Roderick will end up is unclear, but this serves to foreshadow the death of Roderick and Madeline. While Poe gives ample insight of the fate of this house and its tenants, he never revealed the method, only the possible results. This access to the story’s inner-workings only tells the reader so much as to keep them speculating. Every inch of the Usher household and the environment surrounding it seem to serve as symbols to the unfortunate fate of the House of Usher. While most of these elements serve as symbols, Poe also uses allusion conjointly to achieve the same

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In the reading, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Edgar Allen Poe uses many intricate metaphors to create a feeling of unsettlety. When the narrator speaks with his friend Roderick, he is told about the very fate of Roderick Usher,

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At the beginning of the story, Edgar compares the Usher house to a living person. The detail that Usher says' ' vacant eyelike window ``'' decayed trees ``'' bleak walls ``'' rank sedges ``''utter depression of soul” (paragraph 1 ) The narrator compares these terms with a living human. Whereas ,” It was this deficiency . . . , so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the “House of Usher''- an appellation which seemed to include, in the midst of the peasantry who used it , both the family and the family mansion. ``( paragraph 3) The “House of Usher'' seems to be symbolic of the family and the building.

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In the short story, Usher II the author uses allusion to help the reader visualize the setting of the story. The author of the short story, Usher II sets the story by using allusion to other scary short stories to help the reader to visualize the house. In the first example of allusion, Bradbury creates a connection to begin to set the story off with describing Edgar Allan Poe’s quote of his take on the house. Stendhal stands upon a low black hill reciting a quotation from Poe’s story The House of Usher.

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Poe is a fan of personification, while Irving would rather use more satire in his stories. The narrator of “The Fall of the House of Usher” helps Roderick Usher through his malady through multiple activities, one of which includes listening to him read a poem called “The Haunted Palace”. In which, a “Radiant palace–reared its head” (Poe Paragraph 19). This palace is ruled by a king that is killed and taken over, representing the taking-over of Roderick Usher’s mind. This foreshadowing and the personification of the palace also builds up suspense.

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When the narrator sees Usher for the first time in years, he “gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!”. From the moment Roderick is introduced, he is described with ominous tones. Although the reader has no idea what Usher had looked like before his illness, the thoughts of the narrator invoke an unsure and suspenseful mood. After spending more time with him, the narrator had also come to learn that “He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth—in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated—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—an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.”.

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When the narrator first was reconnected with Rodrick, they were talking and the narrator learned something disturbing about the Usher family. “The entire family lay in the direct line of descent” (Poe). Showing the family dynamic and how it was forced upon the Usher twins since their whole family had done it before. As the narrator is feeling like he is going insane he meets with Rodrick for the last time learning what is truly happening in the house. “The rendering of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault!”

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Poe uses the literary element of symbolism in the story to represent Roderick’s mental state throughout the story. He utilizes a lot of examples of symbolism throughout the story such as in paragraph 5 the narrator says “Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building from the front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction until it came lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.” The narrator is explaining what he sees when he first walks up to the house of ushers and it represents Roderick Usher's state of mind is in at that point in time of the story and can give the readers suspense because they don’t know what to expect when the narrator enters the house. Another way Poe uses symbolism in his story is in all of Roderick Usher's art pieces. All his art represents his life and all of the things in his life; In paragraph 17 the narrator states “A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white and without interruption or device.”

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In paragraph five of Poe’s story, as the narrator takes in the sight of the house, he realizes that their was a large crack from the top of the front roof, all the way down “in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters. ”(Poe,5) The narrator has arrived at the house and can not believe how daunting the house looks and it makes him wonder how bad-off his friend actually might be. This is a use of symbolism because later on in the story we are shown how Roderick Usher acts and how poor his health actually is. The owner of the house, Roderick, has a very strong illness of schizophrenia which makes him lose his mind; the cracks in the house resemble the “cracks” in Usher’s mind.

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People have many factors in their lives affecting their motivations and decision-making processes. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” the main character is a man named Roderick Usher. This man is affected by emotional influences, family illness, and a gloomy environment. The emotional theme of fear runs through the entirety of this story. Mr. Usher is influenced by an illness that affects his sister and his own self proclaimed mental illness.

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that the stem of the Usher race . . . had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. (Poe 2) Despite the incestual means of their conception occurring in the past, resulting genetic defects oppress the Usher siblings Madeline and Roderick—both physically and mentally—well into the future. Although the narrator provides no physical description of Madeline Usher prior to her entombment, of her brother Roderick he reports deformed features in line with those of products of

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Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” describes an unnamed narrator’s visit to his friend’s (Roderick Usher) house. Roderick, sick with “a morbid acuteness of the senses” (5), has requested that the narrator come to the House of Usher for company. As the narrator enters the house, he notices that the house possesses an “irredeemable gloom” (3). The narrator also spots Roderick’s female twin, Madeline, who suffers from catalepsy.

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“In the view of Richard M. Fletcher, Edgar Allan Poe was neither a symbolist nor an allegorist; he was a synonymist, that is, a word painter or a manipulator of vocabulary, who employed a rag-bag of generally shabby techniques to write his tales and poems, some of affirm his stature as a writer of genius.” (Stauffer, 48) Edgar Allan Poe’s writing style was not something that everybody used to, he had his own techniques to write, playing with the words and painting a poem or a tale by using his brush. “The Fall of the House of Usher” has 3 major characters in the story which is Roderick Usher, Madeline Usher and the narrator. Everything starts with a letter from Roderick Usher to the narrator.

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