House Of Usher Response

The Fall of The House of Usher” is one of Poe's longest pieces and is filled with literary elements. One literary element among these is the double meaning which the house itself is. The house represents the narrator’s mind, and when the house falls it represents the fall in reason. Which throughout the entirety of the story the narrator is slowly going insane to the point of complete corruption. The narrator sees a crack in the house as he approaches it, the crack is small and thin, but despite its width being subpar the fracture runs all the way from the top of the house to it’s foundation.

All these things put together and a few others help to connect the house to Roderick and Lady Madeline. When the narrator first sees Roderick after a long period of time, he thinks that he resembles that of a corpse. Then Roderick tells him the reason for his appearance, why he looks so bad. He said he had an illness that was a “morbid acuteness of the senses.” The word morbid, when used anywhere, has very strong meaning and it is of the negative type. He uses the word tortured when he is describing his eyesight and says that even the slightest sound is almost unbearable. Thinking about having all of these symptoms put together is a very bad picture to paint in your mind. His condition, in this case, is very comparable to that of the condition of the house.

Roderick Usher, the head of the house, is and educated man. He comes from a wealty family and owns a huge house. He seemed to have once been an attractive man in the way the narrator described him to be. However, his appearance deteriorated over time. When the narrator finally saw Roderick, his appearance had completely altered. The narrator notes various symptoms of insanity from Roderick’s behavior: “in the manner of my friend I was struck with an incoherence and inconsitency...habitual trepidancy, and excessive nervous agitation...His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision...to that....of a lost drunkard, or the erreclaimable eater of opium”. Roderick’s state worsens throughout the story. He becomes increasingly restless and unstable, especially after the burial of his sister.

After the completion of their ballad, Roderick tells the narrator that he believes in the “sentience of all vegetable things” (Poe par. 19). In other words, he believes that all things, no matter how primitive, have some sort of conscious understanding. Now that the only surviving members of the Usher race are twins Madeline and Roderick, the house itself senses it is in danger of becoming extinct and takes control. It traps Roderick and pushes him to continue the family line with his sister, allowing the “House of Usher” to continue on surviving. Roderick even develops an “acute bodily illness… which oppressed him” (Poe par. 2).

Edgar Allen Poe wrote a short story named “The Fall of the House of Usher” which had a very complicated message. In the house lived Roderick Usher and his sister Madeline. Roderick is suffering physiologically. When the narrator arrives to the house he describes the house in a dark and evil way. As he approaches the house he finds Madeline in a state of depression and sickness. Madeline later dies from a mysterious illness and Roderick and the narrator burry Madeline under the house because Roderick believed scientist would run experiments on her because of her disease. Madeline then comes back from the grave and comes at Roderick which causes him to die from shock. The narrator flees before the house collapses. In the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” written by Edgar Allen Poe, the author uses the theme of family, isolation and madness to show why the house collapsed.

In stanza III, the “luminous windows saw spirits moving musically”, the same two windows who, in stanza VI, become “red-litten windows, seeing vast forms that move fantastically to a discordant melody”. This weakening of the state of the house exemplifies the weakening of the Usher family, as there are only two members left, both of which are ill.

Another theme that Poe explores in The Fall Of The House Of Usher is fear. It is fear that drives the story, fear that traps the narrator, and eventually fear that kills Roderick Usher. Poe foreshadows the paradox of Roderick’s fear early in the story: “There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition…is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis.” Roderick Usher is quoted as saying “I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect--in terror." This means that he is not afraid of death, but of fear itself. And it is this fear of fear that eventually leads to his death, when Madeline ‘returns from the dead’ and scares him to death.

The short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe is about how a nameless narrator gets invited to come see his childhood friend. Because his childhood friend named Roderick Usher, is feeling emotionally and physically unwell, the narrator rushes to be with his friend. During the narrator’s stay at the house many strange things like noises and death begin to happen. Towards the end of the story the narrator begins to hallucinate being under the power of Roderick Usher and the house.

In “Fall of the House of Usher”, Edgar Allan Poe uses parallels between Roderick Usher and the House to illustrate how one affects the other. The House particularly compares to the physical appearance with Roderick Usher. To illustrate, Rodericks physical appearance is crumbling, much like the Houses “crumbling condition of the individual stones” (Poe 323). With human like qualities, the Houses “vacant eyelike windows” are a direct parallel to Rodericks “large eye, liquid and luminous” (Poe 322-324). In other words, the Usher family is so connected to their home that Roderick begins to physically look like the worn down, dark and mysterious House that is his abode. Not only does the House have similar physical parallels, but Rodericks

Hence, Poe appropriates a setting that seems to contaminate the characters. Just as the atmosphere and landscape seem translated into the characters, the house, as another primary feature of setting, functions as a symbol for the Usher family. The narrator even mentions initially that “House of Usher” had come to represent both family and home. Therefore, the house itself can be seen as an embodiment of the family. Poe emphasizes this symbolism by personifying the house, providing it with the anatomy of humans: “eye-like windows” and clothing: a “veil.” Moreover, the house is deteriorating just as the family is. The Ushers, Roderick and his sister Madeline, have no relatives, only themselves, and both are suffering with unusual illness. Finally, after Roderick and Madeline die, likewise the house completely breaks apart, characterizing the fate of the family.

Poe’s use of play on words contributes to the sense of confusion and disarray. For example, Usher, is not only the family name, but it could also be interpreted as the exact definition of usher, which means to show or guide someone to a certain place. This is what Roderick did when he invited the narrator to the house. Roderick “ushered” him into a whole new world of darkness and deception. This may explain the reason of the house’s downfall. There was a compassionate man that entered the house, which led to an imbalance. The house, almost like a person, could not handle the change within and it crumbled into the ground.

The Fall of the House of Usher is a story “of sickness, madness, incest, and the danger of unrestrained creativity. This is among Poe's most popular and critically-examined horror stories” (Gordon). For example if you were to close your eyes while someone was reading the story you would see the house “decaying” in your imagination (Poe). From the start of the story the narrator’s strange “insufferable gloom” is introduced. He notes the darkness of his surrounding (Gordon). The stories are very deeply described and felt.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” follows a similar symbolic storyline. Throughout the story, the narrator uncovers significant details regarding the mysterious childhood friend of his and many of the important elements are revealed. Specifically, Poe designed the plot in such a way that the Usher siblings represent two sides of the same individual; Madeline and Roderick as the body and the mind respectively (Miller par 32). Since the twins are the first in their family, it shows the separation from original unity (genetically) and foreshadows that the twins must die in order for the restoration of peace. The House of Usher also has a significant symbolic value in the story; it represents Roderick’s psychological state of mind and is described by the narrator as having disturbing realistic qualities (Poe 893). Nevertheless, toward the end of the story, the epitome of the symbolic nature of this story is revealed and is concluded by an epic turn of events. Madeline collapses on Roderick as the narrator rushes to leave the house; the siblings death at the end symbolize the destruction of the physical world as shown by Madeline and the destruction of the spiritual world as displayed by Roderick’s immediate death

Faithful to the principles of the author, the first detailed words of description of the setting announce the decadent character of the composition- “All the main lines of action are supported by a systematic elaboration of detail” (Robinson, 79). The Fall of the House of Usher begins with the description of the place where all the facts of the story will develop: “It was a dark and soundless day near the end of the year, and clouds were hanging low in the heavens… through country with little life or beauty; and in the early evening I came within view of the House of Usher” (Poe, 22). At exterior levels, the presence of a crack crosses the whole structure of the house: “a crack making its way from the top down the wall until it became lost in the dark waters of the lake.” (Poe, 23). The dark aspect is present in the obscure interiors of the house: “Dark covering hung upon the walls. The many chairs and tables had been used for a long,

The long family line has imprinted its aura onto the house, and in turn, the house conduces the inhabitants towards a predetermined lifestyle. The Usher family, as the narrator says, despite its age, has always been feeble, because it has never been able to generate an enduring branch. Just as the family, the house has a sturdy appearance, given by its endurance through time, but it is marked by decay and so are its surroundings: the crumbled stones, the trees and the spooky tarn all add to the oppressive, uncanny atmosphere. Just as the individual parts which shape the domain are marked by decomposition, so is each member of the family plagued by some form of disintegration.