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The Fall Of The House Of Usher Essay

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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 Fall Of The House Of Usher By Edgar Allan Poe

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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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He receives a letter from Roderick telling him that his sister is sick and he needs help. She ends up dying from catalepsy putting them both in a stressful situation. They end up burying her alive under the house. She crawls out and attacks Roderick and he dies from fear while she ends up dying completely . The narrator runs away from the house as it falls apart behind him.

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When Roderick asks the narrator to help him take his sister to the tomb, the narrator explains madeleine's appearance. He says, “The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left… the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip” (Poe). As Roderick is entombing is own sister, she still has signs of life such as color in her face and a small smile. Roderick does not address these strange things, and closes the tomb. This shows Roderick’s sense of remorselessness because he does not hesitate when signs of life are present.

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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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Deep within every person there is a sense of fear that terrifies them for life. In Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Fall of the house of Usher”, the narrator enters the home of a lifelong friend, Usher, who has fallen to the fear he has held within him. Usher’s twin sister, Madeline, has Usher on edge thinking that she is dead. When they bury her, she comes back to life and takes him away to die with him. They are the last two of the family of Ushers.

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It is as if he is trapped in the house, and he can’t escape. Roderick needs the house evidently, as much as the house needs him. They are both slowly

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“There was a coldness, a sickening of the heart, in which I could discover nothing to lighten the weight I felt” This line perfectly sums up the overall tone of The Fall of the House of Usher. The story at its most basic level is about a man who visits his old friend in a house which is seemingly under some sort of supernatural hex. The way Poe goes into such detail describing the characters and their personal reactions to the events that take place during the story help the reader to stay close to the actions of the story. Additionally Poe describes the house so well that the reader can easily picture the dilapidated mess as if standing in front of it.

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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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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” the tone gives off an eerie and bizarre feeling. This is similar to many of Poe’s other short stories but this piece the most. The tone is gloomy compared to “The Black Cat” that Poe has also written. The author starts off the story with immense details of the setting. The readers get a dark vibe from these details.

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The end of Roderick’s life is described as, “... in her violent and how final death-agonies bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated” (Poe 430). Throughout the story, Roderick anticipated that his sister’s spirit would try to attack him because he had always heard her voice

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