Background of the Story
“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a short story published in 1839 in American writer Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in Gentleman’s Magazine by Burton and later included in the collection Tales of Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. The story is a work of Gothic Fiction and deals with the themes of isolation, madness, family, and metaphysical identities.
Hezekiah Usher House could provide a source of inspiration for Poe’s story. The house was located in the Usher estate. The house was built in 1684 and was relocated in 1830. The sources indicate that the owner of the house caught a sailor and his young wife in the house and entombed them in their place of trysting. In 1830, when the house was torn down, two bodies were found in the cellar cavity.
The short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is regarded as the best example of the totality of Poe as every detail and element in the short story is relevant and related.
The characteristic element of Poe’s work is the presence of capacious and disintegrating houses; such houses in the stories symbolize the destruction of the human soul and the human body.
This short story illustrates the ability of Poe to create an emotional tone in his work by employing feelings such as guilt, doom, and fear. The emotions are central to the personality of Roderick Usher, who has been suffering from an unknown disease like many of the characters of Edger Allan Poe.
Like the narrator of the story of “Tell-Tale Heart,” the hyperactive senses of Roderick Usher are inflamed by his disease. Even though the illness is displayed physically, it is based on the moral and mental state of Roderick Usher. His sickness is suggestive because he is expected to be sick based on the illness in his family’s history. Moreover, he buries his sister alive to fulfill his self-creating prophecy.
The Fall of the House of Usher Summary
The short story opens with an unnamed narrator who approaches House of Usher on the dark, dull, and soundless day. The house belongs to his boyhood friend Roderick Usher. The house is mysterious and gloomy. The narrator noticed the diseased atmosphere and absorbed evil in the house from the murky pond and decaying trees around the house. He also observes that even though the house appears to be decaying, its structure is fairly solid. In front of the building, there is no small crack from the roof to the ground.
The narrator has visited the house because Roderick Usher has sent him a letter that sincerely asks him to give him company. In the letter, Roderick has mentioned that he has been physically and emotionally ill due to which the narrator has rushed to help his friend.
The narrator then mentions the Usher family. He says that though they are an ancient clan, they have never flourished. From generation to generation, only one member of the family survives. Therefore, they formed a direct line of descent with no branches from outside. With its estate, the Usher family becomes so much identified that people often confuse the inhabitants with the home.
The narrator further mentions that the inside of the house is as scary and frightening as inside. He goes to the room where Roderick is waiting for him. He observes him be less energetic and paler. Roderick tells him that he is suffering from fear and nerves, and his senses get heightened.
The narrator also mentions that Roderick appears to be afraid of his own house. Madeline, the sister of Roderick, is taken with a mysterious illness that cannot be cured by the doctors. She is perhaps suffering from catalepsy in which one loses the control of his/her limbs. To cheer up his friend, the narrator spends several days with him. He listens to his friend and plays guitar. He also reads stories to him; however, he is able to lift the spirit of Roderick. Soon afterward, Roderick claims that the house is unhealthy.
Madeline dies, and Roderick resolves to bury her in the house temporarily. Since her disease was rare and unique, he fears that the doctors may take her dead body scientific research, so he wants to keep her in house. The narrator helps his friend to put Madeline’s body in the tomb and observes that her cheeks are rosy. He also realizes that Madeline and Roderick were twins.
With passing days, Roderick becomes more uncomfortable. The narrator was unable to sleep one night. Roderick knocks on the door in a hysterical state. He takes the narrator to the window. The see a bright-looking gas nearby the house. The narrator tells him that such gas is natural; there is nothing uncommon in it.
In order to pass the night, the narrator reads a story to Roderick. He reads Sir Launcelot Canning’s “Mad Twist,” a medieval romance. When he reads the story, he starts hearing the noises that resemble the description in the story. Initially, he ignores the noises thinking it to be his imagination. However, the noises become more clear and more distinct after some time that it cannot be ignored.
He also observes that Roderick has fallen over his chair and is muttering to himself. To listen to him, the narrator approaches him. Roderick discloses that he has been hearing such noises for days and thinks that they have buried Madeline alive. It is Madeline trying to escape. He cries that she is standing behind him. The door opens with the wind blowing, and Madeline was standing behind it in a white bloodied robe. She instantly attacks him, and he dies of fear. The narrator runs from the house. As soon as he escapes, the house of Usher cracks and crumbles to the ground.
Characters
Roderick Usher
He is the owner of the Usher estate. He is the last surviving male member of the Usher Family. He acts as a twin of his sister, Madeline. He illustrates himself as a mind to her body and suffers from the mental counterpart of his sister’s physical illness.
Roderick is one of the character doubles of Edger Allan Poe. He is a bookish and intellectual man while his sister is sick and bedridden. Roderick’s mental inability to differentiate from reality and fantasy correspond to his sister’s physical weakness. These characters are employed by Poe to explore the relationship and philosophical mystery between body and mind.
Poe imagines what would happen if the connection between the body and mind are served and assigned to different people. The imagery of the twin and the incestuous history in Ushers’ family line shows Roderick is inseparable from his sister. Poe maintains the idea that even though the mind and body are inseparable, they depend on each other for survival. When one of the elements suffers from a breakdown, the interdependence causes a chain reaction. The physical death of Madeline parallels the collapse of Roderick’s sanity and the house of Usher.
Madeline Usher
She is the twin sister of Roderick; she is suffering from mysterious illness catalepsy. When the narrator discovers that she is the twin sister of his friend, it points out the outsider’s relationship of the narrator to the house of Usher.
Unnamed narrator
He is the boyhood friend of Roderick. Roderick contacted him when he was suffering from emotional and mental distress. He does not know much about the house of Usher and is the first outsider to visit the house in many years.
Themes
Madness
The short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” is an account of a madman whose sickness is suggestive because of the sickness in the family line. His fears are apparent and manifest themselves through the sentient and supernatural family estate. The story deals with both mental and physical illness and its effects on people who are close to you.
Much of the apparent madness in the story does not appear to be due to supernatural elements. The main character is not really crazy or mad. However, the house he lives in is haunted. Considering this, one can interpret that Roderick does not bury his sister alive, but she is back from the dead. One can also interpret that madness is imaginary.
Family
“The Fall of the House of Usher” is an account of a family that is self-isolated, bizarre, and so remote from normalcy that the very existence of this family has become supernatural and eerie. The bond between the brother and sister is inexplicable and intense. It could possibly be supernatural or incestuous. This between them even surpasses death. One can interpret that twin siblings are actually one person that is split into two. That is why they are inseparable from each other.
Isolation
The story deals with the family that is so remote and isolated from the world that they have developed their own non-existing barriers to interact with the world outside. The house of Usher has its own reality and is governed by its own rules, with people having no interest in others. This extreme isolation makes the family closer and closes to the extent that they become inexplicable to the outside world.
Fear
The idea of fear is worse for Roderick Usher than the object he fears. In fact, it is fear that causes his death in the story. One can interpret the last action in a way that fear of any occurrence manifests it in real life. Roderick has feared his death, and he brings his own death.
Identity
The short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” shows a split-personality disorder in a dramatized way. The tale explores the various aspects of identity and the means through which these aspects could possibly be fractioned. The story emphasized the difference between the mental and physical parts and how these parts interact with each other.
Literary Analysis
The short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” contains a quintessential characteristic of gothic fiction. There is a dreary landscape, haunted house, mysterious sickness, and double personality. Even though the gothic elements in the story are easily identifiable, some of the terror in the story is because of its vagueness. The readers cannot identify the location of the house or when the story takes place. Instead of using standard narrative markers, Poe employed gothic elements such as a barren landscape and inclement weather.
The readers are left alone with the narrator as it is such a haunted place. Even though the narrator is the boyhood friend of Roderick, he does not know much about him – even he does not know the basic fact about him that he has a twin sister. Poe makes the readers ponder on why Roderick contacts the narrator in his state of need and the persistence of the response of the narrator.
Though Poe gives the identifiable elements of the Gothic take, he contrasts the standard form of a tale with the plot that is sudden, inexplicable, and filled with unexpected interruptions. The story opens without providing complete information about the motives of the narrator’s arrival at the house of Usher. This ambiguity sets the plot of the story that vague the real and the fantastic.
Edger Allan Poe also creates a claustrophobic sensation in his story. The narrator of the story is trapped in the charm of Roderick’s attraction, and he cannot escape it until the house of Usher completely collapses. Because of the structure of the house, the characters cannot act or move freely in the house. Thus the house is assumed to be a monstrous character/structure in itself. It is a mastermind that controls the actions and fate of its residents.
Poe also creates confusion between the inanimate and living objects by doubling the house of Usher to the genetic family line of the Usher family. The narrator refers to the house of Usher as the family line of the Usher Family.
Even though he metaphorically employs the word “house,” he also uses it to describe the real house. The narrator is not only trapped inside the house, but the house also describes the biological fate of the family as well, as the Usher family has no branches, all the genetic transformation takes place through incestuous relationships within the domain of the house. The people and peasantry also confuse the house with the family as the physical structure effectively portrays the genetic pattern of the family.
The claustrophobia of the house of Usher has a deep influence on the relationship among the characters of the story. Due to claustrophobia, the narrator is not able to realize that Roderick and Madeline are twins. He realizes when they prepare to entomb her dead body. Moreover, he is confined, and the cramped setting of the tomb metaphorically characterizes the characters. The twins are so similar, and it is impossible for them to develop separately. Because of Madeline’s similarity to Roderick, she has been buried before she is actually dead, and this similarity is shown by the coffin that holds her identity.
Madeline appears to be suffering from the typical problems of nineteen-century women. All of her identity is invested in her body. While on the other hand, Roderick possesses intellectual powers. However, when Madeline comes out from the tomb, she possesses more power in the story and counteracts the weak, immobile, and nervous disposition of her brother.
Some scholars and critics argue that the character of Madeline does not exist at all. They have reduced her to the shared figment of the imagination of the narrator and Roderick. However, Madeline appears to be central to the claustrophobic and symmetrical logic of the story. Madeline suppresses Roderick by not permitting him to see her separate or essentially different from him. This attack is completed when she finally attacks and kills him at the end of the story.
Throughout the story, there is a doubling. The story emphasizes the Gothic character of the doppelganger. Doppelganger is the character double and portrays the doubling of the literary forms or inanimate structures. For example, the narrator observes that the mansion is a reflection in the shallow pool or tarn that joins the front of the house. The house is doubled through its image in the tarn; however, the image is upside down, which characterizes the relationship between Madeline and Roderick.
The story also alludes to many other works of literature. It alludes to the poems “Mad Trist” and “The Haunted Palace” by Sir Launcelot Canning. These poems are composed by Poe; however, in the story, he attributed these poems to the other sources. Both of these poems counteract and therefore predict the plotline of the story. The poem “Mad Trist” is about breaking into the dwelling of a hermit by Ethelred and mirrors Madeline’s escape from the tomb.
The overpass of the border is vitally related to the Gothic horror of the story. Poe’s experience in the magazine industry makes him excessively obsessed with word games and codes. This story highlights his obsession with naming characters. The word “Usher” not only refers to the family of the mansion. It is actually the act of crossing a border that carries the narrator into the tenacious world of Madeline and Roderick.
The letters of Roderick ushers the narrator into an unknowable world. And maybe the presence of narration – an outsider – leads to the destruction of the house. The narrator is excluded from the Usher’s fear of the outsider, a fear that highlights the claustrophobic nature of the story. The narrator unwittingly draws the whole structure by undermining the fear of the outside. The poem “Mad Trist” and Madeline escapes also show the similar yet playful crossing of the borders. Thus Poe buries the pun in tales in an invented severity of medieval romance, and this earned him popularity in the magazines of America.
Tone
The tone of the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is deliberate. It is a terrifying story. The narrator of the story is the center of the strange parts of the story. However, an important point should be kept in mind that the story is narrated in retrospect; that is why the deliberate tone of the story is not compromised by the frantic mania of a terrified narrator.
For example, considering the second last paragraph of the story:
“For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold,—then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.”
Poe unfolds the story in a calm and careful manner by keeping a respectful distance from the inexpressible details and maintains the perspective of the narrator on the crazy events going on. Such a calm approach to terrifying and uncommon events is horrifying.
Genre
The story “The Fall of the House of Usher” belongs to the Gothic Fiction. There is a sentient house, an underground tomb, a dead body, and dark and stormy nights. All of these feature a tale as Gothic fiction. “Supernatural Gothic” is one of the subgenres of Gothic fiction. In supernatural gothic, weird, and strange things, happenings can be attributed to the supernatural happening.
Moreover, the inexplicable diseases of the mind and body in Roderick Usher and Madeline Usher show the story belongs to the genre of Gothic or horror fiction.
Title
The title of the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” can be interpreted in various ways. The first interpretation can be of the actual fall of the house of Usher. The House of Usher is the place or mansion that the narrator visits and the main action of the story occur. The house of Usher falls at the end of the story into the pool of water situated before the house. The small crack that the narrator sees when he enters the house foreshadows the fall of the house. Since from the beginning of the story, the readers see that there is something wrong with the house, and certainly, the fissure/crack splits the house and destroys it.
Now comes the symbolic interpretation of the house of Usher. The narrator tells the readers the term “The House of Usher” does not only refer to the house but also the family dwelling in the house and the Usher bloodline. The title does not only refer to the literal fall of the house but also to the fall of the Usher family with the death of Roderick Usher. The narrator mentions that Roderick and his sister Madeline are the only two surviving family members, so their death makes the death of the family line.
The decline of the Usher family is also foreshadowed in the story. Roderick Usher prophecies his death to the narrator in the manner it really occurs. Roderick claims that he will die of fear. However, it is worth noting that the death of Roderick is another literal fall.
All of the falls in the novel, the fall of Roderick, the fall of the bloodline of the Usher Family, and the fall of the house, occurs at the same time at the end of the story. This coincidence illustrates the fantastical nature of the story.
Setting
The setting of the novel is several dark and stormy nights and the haunted mansion. Any particular geographic location of the story or the time of occurrence is completely unknown to the readers. However, the atmosphere and the mood of the setting are far more important than the time and place of the setting. Poe creates a powerful atmosphere. The first of the many settings of the house, Poe describes the outside of the house as spooky. There is an ominous fissure that runs down the center of the house.
Poe creates a more scary setting inside the house. Even though the corridors in the house are filled with the apparently ordinary things, they scream out horror. Moreover, another horrific element of the story is the dank underground tomb. It is masterfully-crafted mini-setting the house of Usher.
The mansion is carefully crafted to emphasize the atmosphere and mood of the story. There are creepy furnishings and tapestries inside the house. The story becomes claustrophobic when the readers know that Roderick Usher has not left the house in ages. In fact, once entered, the narrator also does not leave the house until the story ends.
Writing Style
The writing style of the short story is ornate and rhythmic. Edgar Allan Poe is known for his melodramatic macabre. “The Fall of the House of Usher” indeed bears the mark of this authorial stamp. The story is widely admired for its nearly-poetic rhetoric. For example, the first sentence contains the phrase “singularly dreary tract of country.” The length and weight of the “y” sound are in contrast with the hard and cutting “c” sound in the next two sentences. Moreover, the last sentence also contains rhythmic style as “
“the deep and dark tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the ‘House of Usher.’”
There are lots of more rhythmic gems in the story.
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Reality and Art
In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher,” strangely mingles the real with the fictional. The artistic creation of Roderick is directly connected to what happens in the house of Usher. He creates an underground tomb and then entombed Madeline in the tomb. He then prophecies about the destruction of the house, and the house is destroyed. He yells that Madeline is standing behind the door, and when the door opens with the storm, she is standing. Even at the beginning of the story, Roderick claims that he will die because of fear, and he does indeed die because of fear.
One can assume that Roderick can see the future with his lustrous and magical eyes. He is aware of the upcoming events, and he speaks about them before. One can also assume that Roderick causes the things to happen; that is why he is preoccupied with the fear that he manifests in reality.
Doubling
Besides art mirroring or foreshadowing reality in the story, the other thing such as “reflection” and “doubling” is also going on in the story. When the story opens, we see that the narrator observes the inverted image of the house of Usher in the water pool that lies in front of the house. Moreover, there is also an inverted dichotomy between Roderick Usher and Madeline Usher.
The House of Usher
The narrator tells the readers the term “The House of Usher” refers to the house and the family dwelling in the house and the Usher bloodline. The title does not only refer to the literal fall of the house but also to the fall of the Usher family with the death of Roderick Usher. The narrator mentions that Roderick and his sister Madeline are the only two surviving family members, so their death makes the death of the family line.
The decline of the Usher family is also foreshadowed in the story. Roderick Usher prophecies his death to the narrator in the manner it really occurs. Roderick claims that he will die of fear. However, it is worth noting that the death of Roderick is another literal fall.
All of the falls in the novel, the fall of Roderick, the fall of the bloodline of the Usher Family, and the fall of the house, occurs at the same time at the end of the story. This coincidence illustrates the fantastical nature of the story.
The Small Fissure
The narrator, while entering the House of Usher, sees a small crack in the house, this crack not only refers to the crack in the house, but also the crack in the Usher family. There is a symbolic connection between the literal fissure and the metaphorical fissure. This small fissure shows disruption in the family, specifically between Roderick and Usher. This small fissure splits the family and the house of Usher.
Narrator Point of View
The story “The House of Usher is narrated in the first person with the peripheral narrator. The narrator of the story is nameless, suggesting that his only job is to narrate the story. The readers are not provided much information about the narrator. Instead of focusing on the narrator, much of the interest of the readers are drawn towards the strange events that are being narrated.
The narrator insists on portraying all of the happenings in the house of Usher with vivid and accurate descriptions. This description is one of the most interesting things to note and very futile to observe. For example, the narrator writes that
“…an influence, whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated.
“I would in vain endeavour to reduce more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words.”
“I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me.”
One of the most interesting statements made by the narrator is:
“I lack words to express the full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion.”
In this statement, the narrator is more like pointing out towards something. By claiming the events in real life are scarier and horrifying that it sounds like the story, Poe tries to render his story more horrifying. Whatever the narrator is telling is actually happening, and the real happening was even worse than that.
Moreover, there is a mixture of reality and fiction in the narration. Whatever the narrator is reading aloud to Roderick also manifests in reality. Over here, the narrator tries to explain that words are insufficient to describe reality. The words he reads to Roderick Usher turns real. So one can say that the fictional words, read by the narrator to Roderick, are prophetic words that foreshadow or prophesize the upcoming events. These words are similar to the words of Roderick in which he prophesied his death early at the beginning of the story. Thus one can say the narration of the story is prophetic in nature.