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Francesca Basile

Professor Bradley

ENG1120[N]

28 January 2021

A Critical Reading and Analysis of “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe

“The Fall of the House of Usher” is one of the most emblematic stories of the American

gothic period. The setting, word choice, and characters in the story are all carved from the

elements that make up the gothic genre. From the grey, overcast skies, to the decaying mansion,

to the inexplicably ill and moody characters, Poe quite possibly crafted the most quintessentially

gothic tale of all time. There are several themes presented in this story but one of the biggest is

that of reflections or doubles. As soon as the narrator approaches the house of Usher, he is

immediately possessed by an overwhelming sense of dread. When the narrator looks into the tarn

in front of the house, he sees its reflection and feels rather than understands the perverse nature

of the Ushers. Later, the narrator discovers that Madeline, the sick woman who has been walking

around the house aimlessly with no semblance of life in her eyes, is Roderick’s twin sister.

Whether or not Roderick would like to accept it, he and Madeline are connected; they are

reflections, or doubles, of each other. Attempting to get rid of her, Roderick buries his sister alive

and unknowingly puts the last nail in coffin of his entire bloodline and the house itself. These

two phenomena, the reflection of the mansion in the tarn and the burying of Madeline, are the

most important parts of the story because they illustrate the reasoning behind the illness that

Roderick experiences and the eerie and sinister energy that the house carries.

Roderick and the narrator are friends from childhood but have not seen each other in

several years and the narrator has never visited Roderick at the house of Usher before. In fact,
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there is very little the narrator knows about Roderick such as the fact that he has a twin sister.

What the narrator does know, though, is that the Usher lineage is largely incestuous. The incest

that has persisted for the entirety of the Usher bloodline may be the reason for Roderick and

Madeline’s physical and mental illnesses, and this illness is seeping into the structure of the

house, and this was terrifyingly reflected in the body of water that the narrator observes at the

beginning of the story. The narrator refers to the image of the windows of the house in the tarn as

“eye-like” as if the house is a living thing that is undergoing a sickness alongside Roderick and

Madeline. At the end of the story, when the fissure running down the front of the house finally

splits the house in half, the house collapses into the tarn which confirms the evil that the narrator

witnessed in the reflection of the house and the Usher family. The water was reflecting the decay

of the Usher bloodline and household and the inevitable death of both of those things. Falling

into the tarn, the physical remnant of the Usher’s lewdness becomes one with its reflection and

meets the fate it was always destined for.

There is a prominent theme of doubles in this story, and this is shown through not only

the reflection of the mansion in the tarn but also between the twins: Roderick and Madeline

Usher. Twins are said to be connected to one another. Interestingly, Roderick and Madeline both

seem to be struggling through the same illness, though Madeline’s condition appears worse to

the narrator. Roderick, fearing this agonizing illness and most likely feeling repulsed by its

origin, not so unknowingly buries his twin sister alive. After Roderick and the narrator had

buried Lady Madeline, Roderick had heard her struggling in the coffin for three days and didn’t

do anything about it. Later in the story, she escapes from her coffin and finds Roderick,

delivering to him the fate they would both have to endure together. Their deaths parallel the

collapse of the mansion into the tarn; two doubles becoming one.
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Poe has hidden the themes of this story well. Upon reading the story once, the reader may

not recognize the symbolism of the reflection in the tarn or Lady Madeline. These themes are

overshadowed by Poe’s spooky word choice and ambiguity; the way in which the story is written

proves that his main intention was to frighten readers. However, there is a lot that happens in this

story without being said: Roderick’s repulsion towards the incest that occurred between his past

family members, or his cowardness versus Lady Madeline’s bravery, for example. The story is

set in no particular place at no particular time and the narrator does not even have a name; it does

its job of unnerving the readers well. The analysis of this story is interesting because there are so

many little easter eggs sprinkled throughout the story that tie into the deeper meaning of the

story. For example, the poem that the narrator reads to Roderick to calm him down, called “Mad

Trist”, predicts Madeline’s escape from the coffin. While the narrator is reading, he hears the

sounds that are being described in the poem as if they are happening in real life. This is yet

another occurrence of “mirroring” in the story. The reflection of the house of Usher in the tarn

and the burial of Lady Madeline are two biggest and most recognizable events that connect to the

theme of doubles and therefore, they stand out. These two scenes are important because they

demonstrate the idea that the ugly parts of an individual can only stay hidden for so long. The

mansion’s horrific reflection is its true form just as Lady Madeline shares the same horridness

that lives inside of Roderick.