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The storm intensifies, and objects in theroom glow with unnatural light from the mist that surrounds the mansion. Usher moves hischair to face the door, murmuring under his breath while the narrator reads tohim. The narrator comes to the scene in which the hero forces his way into thehome of a hermit and finds a dragon that he eventually slays with a mace. Ateach critical moment in the story, the narrator hears noises coming fromoutside the room.
A Summary and Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’
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. A week after Madeline’s death, the narrator lies awake with an unexplainedfeeling of fear. A storm rages outside, and despite efforts to reason withhimself, he shakes with terror. He paces around the room, and Roderick entersin a state of restrained hysteria.
Literary Analysis
He soon abandonshis former hobbies, and the narrator observes that Roderick is beginning tolose his mind. While watching his friend’s condition deteriorate, the narratorfeels himself slip into madness as well. Although itis, at first, barely visible to the narrator, it suggests a fundamental splitor fault in the twin personalities of the last surviving Ushers and foretellsthe final ruin of the house and family. Other notable symbols of death andmadness are Roderick's lyric, "The Haunted Palace"; his abstract painting,which is described as a "phantasmagoric" conception by the narrator; and the"fantastic character" of his guitar playing. Besides having a fascination for the weird and the spectral, Poe was also interested in the concept of the double, the schizophrenic, the ironic, and the reverse. He investigated this phenomenon in several stories, including "William Wilson" (a story which is analyzed in this volume), and so it is important to note that there is a special importance attached to the fact that Roderick Usher and the Lady Madeline are twins.
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Unfortunately, modern readers tend to be a little jaded by the many gothic effects. ESP, for example, is rather old hat today as a gothic device, but in Poe's time, it was as frightening and mysterious as UFOs are today. Poe's literary skill is readily apparent in "The Fall of the House ofUsher," and one of his most vivid techniques is the story's tone.
From the first sentence to the last, the mood of desolation and impending doom never leaves. Poe used the principle of analogy very effectively in House of Usher. Finding an identical pattern in each house and family, he makes the events in the book being read correspond to those going on in the house.
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.
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But the setting does have double importance, descriptive and symbolic. Poe introduces plain life in its most rudimentary form, underscoring the miasmic elements in the tale. Roderick'sterrible fate is foretold in the description of the house that totters on thebrink of collapse. The details of the bleak exterior prepare the reader for thedescription of the house's interior and of Roderick and Madeline Usher.
After all, Roderick Usher is a poet and artist, well-read (witness the assortment of books which he and the narrator read together), sensitive and indeed overly sensitive (to every sound, taste, sight, touch, and so on). Many critics have interpreted the story as, in part, an autobiographical portrait of Poe himself, although we should be wary, perhaps, of speculating too much about any parallels. The secret that is buried and then comes to light (represented by Madeline) is never revealed. The symbol which represents the secret – Madeline herself – is hidden away by Roderick, but that symbol returns, coming to light at the end of the story and (in good Gothic fashion) destroying the family for good. As Roderick finishes his story, an eyeless and bloodied Madeline suddenly bursts out of the basement and attacks Roderick as the house begins to crumble around them. In a final burst of strength, Madeline strangles Roderick to death as Auggie flees collapsing home—a sequence that mirrors the ending of Poe's "House of Usher."
One can interpret the last action in a way that fear of any occurrence manifests it in real life. It is revealed that Roderick's sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, deathlike trances. Roderick and Madeline are the only remaining members of the Usher family. The final collapse of this Gothic house is melodramatically spotlighted by the blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely perceptible fissure. This ends both the suffering of the characters, as well as the house.
The truth is that opium and laudanum (opium tincture) in the 19th were very common and many 19th century writers such as S.T. Roderick grows more erratic in his behaviour, and the narrator reads to his friend to try to soothe him. The plot of the romance (a fictional title invented by Poe himself, called ‘Mad Trist’) concerns a hero named Ethelred who enters the house of a hermit and slays a dragon. Several days later, Roderick tells the narrator that Madeline has died, and they lay her to rest in a vault. In the days that follow, the narrator starts to feel more uneasy in the house, and attributes his nervousness to the gloomy furniture in the room where he sleeps.
Outside the castle, a storm is raging and inside the castle, there are mysterious rooms where windows suddenly whisk open, blowing out candles; one hears creaking and moaning sounds and sees the living corpse of the Lady Madeline. This, then, is the gothic and these are its trappings; one should realize by now that these are all basic effects that can be found in any modern Alfred Hitchcock-type of horror film, any ghost movie, or in any of the many movies about Count Dracula. Here is the genesis of this type of story, created almost one hundred and fifty years ago in plain, no-nonsense America, a new nation not even sixty years old. "The Fall of the House of Usher" was first published in 1839 in Burton'sGentleman's Magazine. His own tales of terror, in which he oftendepicted the psychological disintegration of unstable or emotionallyoverwrought characters, were in sharp contrast to the works of more highlypraised writers of the time.
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