A Summary and Analysis of Edgar Allan Poes The Fall of the House of Usher
Table Of Content
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. Madeline appears to be suffering from the typical problems of nineteen-century women. 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. 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. 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.
Edgar Allan Poe
His eyes, he says, are "tortured by even a faint light," and only a few sounds from certain stringed instruments are endurable. When Poe began writing short stories, the short story was not generally regarded as serious literature. Poe’s writing helped elevate the genre from a position of critical neglect to an art form. “The Fall of the House of Usher” stands as one of Poe’s most popular and critically examined stories. Within a few hours of the narrator’s arrival, Roderick begins to share some of his theories about his family. Much to the narrator’s surprise, Roderick claims that the Usher mansion is sentient and that it exercises some degree of control over its inhabitants.
Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher
Long considered Edgar Allan Poe‘s masterpiece, “The Fall of the House of Usher” continues to intrigue new generations of readers. The story has a tantalizingly horrific appeal, and since its publication in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, scholars, critics, and general readers continue to grapple with the myriad possible reasons for the story’s hold on the human psyche. These explanations range from the pre-Freudian to the pre–Waste Land and pre-Kafka-cum-nihilist to the biographical and the cultural. Indeed, despite Poe’s distaste for Allegory, some critics view the house as a Metaphor for the human psyche (Strandberg 705).
Haunted Mansion, Several Dark and Stormy Nights
The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, a late 18th century novel which largely contributed in defining the gothic genre. He suffers from a depressing malaise characterized by strange behavior. For instance, it has sometimes been suggested that Roderick’s relationship with Madeline echoes Poe’s own relationship with his young wife (who was also his cousin), Virginia, who fell ill, as Madeline has. But Virginia did not fall ill until after Poe had written ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’.
The narrator then flees the house, and, as he does so, notices a flash of light causing him to look back upon the House of Usher, in time to watch it break in two, the fragments sinking into the tarn. Roderick later informs the narrator that his sister has died and insists that she be entombed for two weeks in a vault (family tomb) in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and he notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks, as some do after death They inter her, but over the next week both Roderick and the narrator find themselves becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. Roderick comes to the narrator’s bedroom, which is situated directly above the vault, and throws open his window to the storm. He notices that the tarn surrounding the house seems to glow in the dark as it glowed in Roderick Usher’s paintings, although there is no lightning. Usher gradually makes clear that his twin sister Madeline has been placed in the family vault not quite dead.
Literary significance and criticism
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Moreover, he buries his sister alive to fulfill his self-creating prophecy. The narrator and Roderick place her in a tomb despite her flushed, lively appearance. In the tale's conclusion, Madeline escapes from the tomb and returns to Roderick, scaring him to death. From his arrival, the narrator notes the family's isolationist tendencies, as well as the cryptic and special connection between Madeline and Roderick, the final living members of the Usher family. Throughout the tale and her varying states of consciousness, Madeline completely ignores the narrator's presence. After Roderick Usher claims that Madeline has died, the narrator helps Usher entomb Madeline in an underground vault despite noticing Madeline's flushed, lifelike appearance.
Full Story Analysis
The narrator of the story is nameless, suggesting that his only job is to narrate the story. Instead of focusing on the narrator, much of the interest of the readers are drawn towards the strange events that are being narrated. 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.
We have a mysterious secret afflicting the house and eating away at its owner, the Gothic ‘castle’ (here, refigured as a mansion), premature burial (about which Poe wrote a whole other story), the mad owner of the house, and numerous other trappings of the Gothic novel. Poe condenses these into a short story and plays around with them, locating new psychological depths within these features. The story “The House of Usher is narrated in the first person with the peripheral narrator.
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. 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.
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For example, the narrator realizes late in the game that Roderick and Madeline are twins, and this realization occurs as the two men prepare to entomb Madeline. The cramped and confined setting of the burial tomb metaphorically spreads to the features of the characters. Because the twins are so similar, they cannot develop as free individuals. Madeline is buried before she has actually died because her similarity to Roderick is like a coffin that holds her identity.
Usher does not identify the "it" he speaks of, but he throws open the casement window and reveals a raging storm outside — "a tempestuous . . . night . . . singular in its terror and its beauty." Again, these details are the true and authentic trappings of the gothic tale. Night, a storm raging outside while another storm is raging in Usher's heart, and a decaying mansion in which "visible gaseous exhalations . . . enshrouded the mansion" — all these elements contribute to the eerie gothic effect Poe aimed for. When the narrator sees Roderick Usher, he is shocked at the change in his old friend. Never before has he seen a person who looks so much like a corpse with a "cadaverousness of complexion." Death is in the air; the first meeting prepares us for the untimely and ghastly death of Roderick Usher later in the story. Usher tries to explain the nature of his illness; he suffers from a "morbid acuteness of the senses." He can eat "only the most insipid food, wear only delicate garments," and he must avoid the odors of all flowers.
An unnamed narrator approaches the house of Usher on a “dull, dark, and soundless day.” This house—the estate of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher—is gloomy and mysterious. 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.
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