The Fall Of The House Of Usher Essay

Edgar Allen Poe’s work, The Fall of the House of Usher tells the tale of friendship, madness, and terror. Poe includes a short poem titled The Haunted Palace to help add more depth and meaning to the story of Roderick and Madeline Usher. At first glance, Poe’s tale is focused only on the Usher siblings. With further reading, however, the tale morphs into the history and downfall of the entire House of Usher. Through the use of parallelism and descriptive language, Poe adds deeper meaning to The Fall of the House of Usher by including his short poem, The Haunted Palace which mirrors the unfortunate tale of the Usher House, family, and Roderick Usher’s descent into madness.
To begin with, The Haunted Palace symbolizes Roderick’s breakdown into madness. The poem begins with a sense of contentment and happiness but rapidly devolves into unhappiness and gloom. Roderick’s illness followed the same pattern; when the narrator first sees Roderick, he exclaims, “Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!” (Poe 324). This shows that Roderick’s condition moved upon him rapidly and he deteriorated quickly, as did the poem starting in Stanza Five. Additionally, according to the narrator, Roderick was vastly different in the years before the madness overtook him as shown in the quote, “It was with difficulty that I

It is often stated that a home reflects its inhabitants, meaning that if the inhabitants are lively and charitable, as the Usher’s were, their house will reflect the jovial atmosphere. It can only be assumed that this is the case with the Usher Family. This is shown in Poe’s The Haunted Palace. The poem starts very lively and joyful, as did the Usher family and House, and descends into grief and morbidity that is very like the wretchedness of the Usher House that the narrator arrives to in the beginning of The Fall of the House of