Literatura Norteamericana

The Fall of The House of Usher by Edgar

Allan Poe
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER is a supernatural horror story told in
first-person narration. The story contains no descriptions of his physical features,
his age, or where he is traveling from. This is Poe’s intention. The absence of a
specific description of his character allows the reader to easily identify with the
narrator. In effect, the reader assumes the role of the narrator and experiences the
fall of the house of Usher as both an observer and a participant—just as Poe
intended.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” is carefully crafted to elicit feelings of dread,
stress, and, above all, what it calls “the grim phantasm, FEAR.”

The setting, diction, and imagery combine to create an overall atmosphere of

gloom. Death and decay are evoked at the outset. The story opens on a “dull, dark,
and soundless day” in a “singularly dreary tract of country.” As the narrator
notes, it is autumn, the time of year when life begins to give way to old age and
death. The house is as melancholy as its environment.

Upon entering the house, the reader as the narrator experience the overwhelming
sensation of entrapment.

THEMES
Madness
Roderick and Madeline demonstrate tell-tale signs of madness–anxiety, nervousness,
depression. Madeline suffers from catalepsy, a symptom of nervous disorders such as
schizophrenia, hysteria, alcoholism, and brain tumours, that causes long periods of
unconsciousness. The narrator also demonstrates signs of madness as catalogued above.
Roderick and Madeline’s isolation contributes to their madness.

Sanity versus Insanity

Poe guides readers to speculate about how the characters' minds work (or don't work).
This narrative pressure starts with the narrator's becoming aware of how the landscape
and the House of Usher shape his mood. It has more power over him than it should.
This concern over sanity starts before he enters this landscape, though, as he reports that
Roderick's letter asking him to visit communicated "nervous agitation." This concern for
Roderick's sanity deepens once he sees his old friend again, as Roderick changes from
one mood to another very quickly and reports some disturbing ideas, such as his belief
about how his family house is shaping his mind.

The narrator questions the sanity of Roderick and Madeline as they slip further from
reality, and he begins to worry about his own mental health. He has reason to worry.
From the moment he enters the area around the house, the narrator feels it affect his
spirit inexplicably. The longer the narrator stays in the house, the more his own
mental state is affected. While the narrator tries to distract Roderick after Madeline's
apparent death, Roderick even calls him a madman for not recognizing what is going
on. Since Roderick may be correct in this moment, the question of who is crazy and
who isn't shifts: maybe Roderick's senses truly are heightened and the things he hears
are real.

Deterioration
Both the literal, physical house of Usher and the dynastic House of Usher are
falling apart. The house's physical condition seems tied to the surrounding landscape,
as if it is covered with fungus and cobwebs, in part because that's what the setting
demands. The house's physical decay is mirrored in the state of Roderick and
Madeline. Both twins are suffering from strange illnesses that parallel the house's
condition. As the house is crumbling away, so Madeline seems to be wasting away. As
the house is discontinuous and contradictory (according to the narrator's reports in the
story's first chapters), so is Roderick warm and friendly, yet pale as a corpse.
Both Roderick and the house itself fall apart after Madeline's death. Roderick
increasingly loses control of his emotional and mental faculties, growing more sensitive
and nervous. He later dies when Madeline reappears and collapses on him. The house,
in turn, then collapses, falling into the lake.
Fantasy versus Reality
Like the narrator's concern over how the landscape affects his mood, the question of
what is real and what is fantasy emerges early in the story and continues throughout.
The narrator compares his early impressions to the dreams of an opium smoker.
There are multiple moments in the story when the blurry and confusing question of
reality versus fantasy is especially driven home. For example, early in the story the
narrator looks at the literal house of Usher in its reflection in the lake, rather than
looking at it directly, which results in odd impressions of the house. The narrator's
description of the Usher family home seems impossible. How can a house be
everywhere decayed, but still intact?

Reality seems to blur and shift in several directions, and there are multiple forces at play
in shaping the characters' reality or encouraging escape into fantasy.
The real and imaginary become indistinguishable as Roderick's ballad comes true and
the story of Ethelred mingles with the sounds of Madeline's escape from the tomb.
Though the narrator says he chose the book he's reading essentially at random—it was
the only one at hand—the sounds described in its pages synchronize with the events
completely. The sound effects for the knight's battle work as the noises Madeline makes
when she's fighting her way out of her vault.

However, given that Madeline has been extremely ill and the vault is sealed deep
underground, the idea that Madeline could have escaped unaided is probably a fantasy
of its own. If the reader understands the story in Jungian, psychological terms, then
there is no "reality" to Madeline's "escape." In this reading, the story is a Jungian
parable, a psychological analysis of Roderick's mind or perhaps the mind of the
narrator, depending upon the identity of the true "madman" of the story.

Incest

Incest ideals in the piece and that the horror that terrified the narrator was that the House
of Usher was poisoned because of the centuries’ long incest between the family
members.
“Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave him

(him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.”

Why, if she dies, would the house of Usher end? He’s a man. He can get married to

someone else if he wants to and have children? He says this because, once the sister dies,

the brother will have no other way to continue the tradition of incest. For me, that one

sentence is proof that incest is the sole reason of the decay and horror at the House of

Usher.

An incestuous tradition has been passed down from generation to generation resulting in

a disease. This disease is killing Madeline and Roderick Usher which leaves both of

them infertile to pass on the family tradition. Madeline and Roderick Usher are the

last two descendants of the Ushers, now it is their responsibility now to carry on the

family tradition.

Symbolism
1. The House of Usher refers to both the house and the family.
2. The ghastly images inside the house symbolize the madness of the house’s
inhabitants. The Gothic literature and stories of strange goings-on represent the
inhabitants’ thoughts.
3. The physical deterioration of the house symbolizes the physical deterioration
of Roderick and Madeline.
4. The upside-down reflection of the house in the tarn symbolizes the upside-
down thinking of the Ushers.
5. The bridge over the tarn symbolizes the narrator who serves as the only bridge
to the outside world.
6. The collapsing of the house straight down into the tarn symbolizes the Usher’s
family ultimate collapse.
7. The rank atmosphere in “The Fall of the House of Usher” symbolizes the
negative effect of being in the Usher’s presence.

SYMBOLS
Eyes
In Western culture, the eyes are the most symbolic sense organ, and sight the most
symbolic sense. An old saying claims the eyes are the window to the soul, and in
many ways, contemporary psychology confirms this. The eyes communicate a person's
emotional state, and changes in perceived illumination relate to changes in mood, as in
the idea of being bright-eyed. When the light goes out of someone's eyes, they become
sad, depressed, or, in the end, they die.

In this story, the first times the narrator mentions eyes, it is the House of Usher's "eye-
like windows." These two mentions in the first page personify the house: before
Roderick suggests the house has an intelligence, the narrator has already done so using
images. The narrator notes these eyes are "vacant," which suggests this intelligence is
disturbed in some way.
The narrator comments explicitly and repeatedly on Roderick's eyes. When he first
arrives at the house, the narrator finds Roderick's eyes particularly luminous,
indicating a strong or special spirit. However, once Madeline dies, the light goes out of
Roderick's eyes. At the very least this symbolizes a blow to his spirit, and may be a
kind of spiritual death foreshadowing his actual bodily death.

House of Usher
The narrator explicitly tells readers that the peasants who live around the House of
Usher have fused the physical house, the single line of inheritance, and the family
into a unified whole. The living Ushers are the house of Usher, and the House of Usher
is the house of Usher. They are one and the same.

Descriptions of the physical house, which start in the first paragraph, are also
descriptions of the House of Usher: like their house, the family is isolated and
melancholy and may exist beyond the reach of reason.

Writing on archetypal symbolism in this story, or the inclusion of universal characters,

symbols, themes, or settings such as the hero or good versus evil, for example,
psychology professor Colin Martindale also suggests a second symbolic meaning for the
house (and notes that Poe makes this one explicit in the story as well, through his use of
"The Haunted Palace"): the house stands for Roderick's mind or personality. In this
reading, the narrator is trying to help Roderick come to peace with the content of his
mind, which includes his twin sister, who is an example of the anima, or the
unconscious. The decay and eventual collapse of the house then become the decay
and eventual collapse of Roderick's mind.

Weather
From start to the end, weather plays a major role. The narrator mentions the weather in
the opening line, commenting on how low and oppressive the clouds are. They limit
vision, and so limit his understanding of the house and situation. When the narrator
wakes up in the night after Madeline's death, Roderick opens the window to reveal a
strange storm that is almost physically impossible. At the same time, there is a
whirlwind blowing intensely and clouds so low they touch the house's towers. Poe here
taps into the longstanding symbolic association between the sky and the spiritual realm:
the term "heaven" or "heavens" is used for both. The weather seems to reflect the
spiritual turmoil of the characters.
Throughout the story, but especially once Madeline dies and Roderick enters an
agitated state, the weather outside the house mirrors rising chaos inside the house.
The distinction between the two fades, and the external weather becomes interwoven
with the emotional reality within the house. When the narrator wakes in the night, he
listens for sounds during pauses in the storm. When Madeline finally returns from
the vault, the house breaks apart and the weather enters (and destroys) the house.
These powerful emotions are no longer at bay: they completely overwhelm Roderick,
until he collapses and only the storm is left.

MOTIFS

Sounds
The narrator's approach to the House of Usher is relatively silent: the opening sentence
even describes the day as "soundless." However, once he's in the house, sounds receive
continual emphasis throughout the story. Roderick's condition makes him overly
sensitive to sound, so both he and the narrator must moderate their noise production. He
can listen to only certain types of music, and other sounds fill him with terror. Once
Madeline dies, the emphasis on sound becomes even stronger. Roderick wanders
through the house, listening for something. Strange sounds awaken the narrator in the
night. As the story nears its climax and the narrator tries to distract Roderick by reading
aloud to him, the house resonates with strange sounds. Grating hinges, screaming, and
ringing sounds terrorize Roderick and the narrator. Roderick's sensitivity to sound, as
well as to light and touch, is a symptom of his psychological illness.

Illness
In many ways, this story would not exist without illness: Roderick's illness provides the
inciting event for the narrator's visit. Roderick is preoccupied with mental and physical
issues that end up overtaking him and his sister. The relationship between Roderick's
and Madeline's illnesses is revealing. Madeline is both wasting away and cataleptic, a
rare condition in which one becomes rigid and non-responsive to stimuli from the
outside world. Roderick's condition contrasts hers: he is overly sensitive to noise and
overreacts to stimuli. It is possible that Madeline is merely the physical manifestation of
Roderick's fear of death. It is also possible that Roderick, as Madeline's caretaker, is
affected negatively through his care of the sick. The story hinges on this question: Is
Roderick the victim of supernatural events, or is he mad?

Fear
When the narrator arrives at the House of Usher, he finds Roderick a slave to fear. In
fact, fear dominates Roderick to such an extent that the fear itself becomes worse than
its real or imagined object. As a controlling force in Roderick's life, his fear takes on the
power to manifest reality. Because Roderick fears death, his fear leads to his
death. Poe's story suggests that people have the power to create negative situations
through their fear of them. In fact, in this story, fear not only creates the reality of
Roderick's death, it spreads like a contagion. As a temporary resident in the House of
Usher, the narrator, too, grows more fearful of both his imaginary and real experiences
as the story progresses, until the world seems nothing but fear.

Claustrophobia
The House of Usher is isolated. In turn the house acts as a barrier that keeps its
inhabitants from interacting with the outside world. Roderick has not left the house in
years. The profound isolation of Roderick and Madeline has caused their eerie closeness
and contributes to the mood of entrapment. There is a claustrophobic fear brewing that
no one ever leaves the House of Usher. This isolation is briefly penetrated by the
introduction of the narrator, an outsider, into the setting. Yet, the longer the narrator
stays in the house, the less able he is to maintain an outsider's perspective.

Before her death Madeline worries about being buried alive, which would trap her in an
even smaller enclosure than the house. In the end this is exactly what happens. The
sensation that everyone in the house is trapped steadily builds and culminates in
Madeline's being buried alive. The narrator's escape at the story's end may be possible
only because he does not share the Usher bloodline.

CHARACTERS
Roderick Usher

In many ways, Roderick Usher is the House of Usher: with his sister, Madeline, dying,
Roderick is all that remains of this ancient house. And both local custom and his own
beliefs link Roderick the man with the physical house in which the Usher family has
long lived, as if they were one and the same. Roderick is an educated man and an
intellectual. He reads widely and plays music. However, almost the whole of his
existence is consumed by his sorrow over his sister's illness, his own illness, and his
resulting mental condition and pervasive fear. His visiting friend (the narrator) finds
Roderick tremendously changed by what he has gone through. He's very pale, and his
eyes shine brightly. He's very thin, and his hair is wild. Because of his condition,
Roderick is extremely sensitive to external stimuli, which limits what he can eat, hear,
see, and smell without pain. Though Roderick is "onstage" throughout the story and
Madeline largely isn't, Roderick as a character is bound to Madeline. As twins, they
were born together. As adult siblings, they live together. As people who are functionally
two parts of a single whole self, they also sicken and ultimately die together.

Narrator
The narrator says little directly about himself or his character. He doesn't share where he
came from, what his own family life was like, or even his name. However, his thoughts,
his conversation, and his actions tell readers a great deal about him. He and Roderick
were friends when they were boys but haven't been close since. Despite this distance, he
cares enough to travel to visit Roderick at his family home. He is at ease with a wide
range of books and music. He also experiences the world through an abstracted lens.
This can be seen in the story's opening paragraphs, when he tries to see the landscape
around the house of Usher in terms of the sublime. The narrator's concern for Roderick
is evident throughout the story, from the fact that he visits, to how he takes on some of
Roderick's nervous condition, and how he tries to care for Roderick as his condition
worsens.

Madeline Usher

Madeline barely exists in the story except in two ways: as Roderick's sister and double,
and as the embodiment of illness. Her doctors don't know what is wrong with her, only
that she is wasting away and is subject to fits of catalepsy, when she becomes
completely rigid and doesn't respond to the outside world at all. At those moments it is
like she is already dead. When she isn't suffering one of these spells, Madeline is barely
more life-like: she drifts from place to place without speaking to people or seeming to
see them, as if she were a ghost. Madeline's major appearance in the story occurs after
she seems to have died. She is buried alive and then comes back covered with blood,
having clawed her way out of her tomb. She embraces her brother, and they die together
as the house collapses.