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The Fall Of The House Of Usher Essay

905 Words4 Pages

In the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, there are three main characters. Two of which are brother and sister, both of whom the story is centered around. Everything that the reader knows about the brother-sister duo is told through the first person point of view. The entirety of the story is a first person account of what a man saw during his time at the Usher residence. It seems as though the only purpose of the narrator is to tell the Usher story, but the reader finds he is given many character qualities throughout the story. He is never given a name or description, but as the story progresses the reader begins to better understand the narrator's involvement with the family and how the toll the daily lives of the Usher's impact him. The story begins with a brief overview of how Roderick Usher and the narrator met long ago. Not much is said about either one of the two mens past. After the very …show more content…

They are so accustomed to their own little world they block out anything that is irregular to it. This happens up until the point that Roderick needs assistance in burying his sister. The narrator is finally acknowledged for his presence. He does what Roderick asks and ends up burying Rodericks undead sister. Whether or not he knew she was dead is debatable, but if he had known she was alive it was a direct result of the influences surrounding him from the previous weeks. As soon as he assists Roderick he goes back to being ignored, seemingly unaffecting the Usher's actions. This remains the same right up until the legacy of the family ends when both of the remaining Ushers die. It is at that moment he leaves the house and his thoughts clear. He finally realizes the impact staying with the family had on him. His personality is affected and is the direct result of the Usher’s. Although the bloodline is finished, the narrator can still be seen as the last remaining

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Throughout the story, the connection between the end of the Usher family name and home is apparent. The narrator gives a statement about the family that provides a fact about the bloodline, “I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all-time honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent …” (414). The Usher family had always been isolated to itself, never marrying other lines into itself and possibly changing the name. This tradition weighs heavily when the Usher family ends up dwindling to the last two remaining twins, who both currently have failing health. The narrator also gives evidence to the connection between the family’s tradition and the home by stating, “... original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the “House of Usher” -an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion” (415).

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The narrator’s diction used in the piece clearly displays his unfavorable feelings toward the House of Usher. In the narrative,

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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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The story begins with the narrator admitting that he is a "very dreadfully nervous" type. This type is found throughout all of Poe 's fiction, particularly in the over-wrought, hyper-sensitive Roderick Usher in "The Fall of the House of Usher. " As with Usher, the narrator here believes that his nervousness has "sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them." Thus, he begins by stating that he is not mad, yet he will continue his story and will reveal not only that he is mad, but that he is terribly mad. His sensitivities allow him to hear and sense things in heaven, hell, and on earth that other people are not even aware of.

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In the story, Roderick Usher requests the presence of his long time friend (pg 150); however, by the time he messaged his friend, the damage was already done. When Rodrick’s friend arrived to the house, he thinks the house is creepy and scary. Ushers friend thinks that the house is even more scary and creepy (pg 150) When he talks to his friend about his family,

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This is evident due to many characteristics. These incidents include Roderick’s looks, why the house fell down, and why Madeline rose from the dead! As the narrator of The Fall of the House of Usher rides on his horse to Ushers home, the setting quickly changes. He states that he saw, “the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain-upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows” (Poe, Page 21)

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1500 Words | 6 Pages

Roderick and Madeline Usher have been riddled with many illnesses as a result of the many generations hailing from a “direct line of descent” (Poe 196). The twins are the last members of their family and are on the edge of extinction. It can be possible that the Usher’s had turned their backs on God and “betrayed the Holy Ghost in themselves” (The Fall of the House of Usher 167). As the last of the Usher House, Madeline and Roderick symbolize the end of “an Enlightenment tradition still standing but about to collapse” (The Fall of the House of Usher 167).

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In the “Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick Usher prematurely buries his sister, Madeline Usher, because he thinks she has died from an unknown illness. Poe describes the burial as, “We replaced and screwed down the lid, and having secured the door of iron, made out the way with the toll…” (Poe 425). When Roderick bolted the iron lid upon his sister’s coffin, all trust that had previously been built between the two had been broken. In Poe’s life, after the burial of his wife and mother, he felt like he could never trust anyone as well.

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