Roderick Usher Downfall

In "Fall of the House of Usher," by Edgar Allen Poe, transformation plays a role as the narrator's mind changes and slowly becomes insane. First off, the gloomy atmosphere of the story causes the narrator to start having strange thoughts. For example, the house looked vacant and decayed which gave the narrator, as well as the reader, a sinking feeling. This begins to tempt the narrator into thinking with a depressed mindset. Next, Roderick Usher, the narrator's close friend, starts to infect the narrator with his own mental illness. The narrator states, "It was no wonder that his condition terrified – that it infected me" (Poe, 24). This quote shows that Usher's ludicrous behavior had a

Most times, anything abnormal or odd tend to be pushed under the rug. Edgar Allan Poe subtly brings attention to topics the are typically ignored. E. A. Poe had far from a perfect childhood. His father left when he was young and his mother died when he was three. Poe also seemed to have a lonely childhood after his parents were gone. He was separated from his relatives and didn’t appear to have many friends. He attended the army and after went into West Point. His academics there were well but he was eventually kicked out because of poor handlings of his duties. Before Poe died, he struggled with depression and a drinking problem. Some believe Poe’s tragic lifetime was the inspiration for some of his stories. Such as, “The Fall of the House of Usher”. A possible theory about this story is that Roderick and the Narrator were one in the same. This essay will discuss the possibility of them being the same through plot, characterization, and personification.

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.

The Usher mansion is slowly deteriorating, just like Roderick Usher himself. The “sombre tapestries,” “ebon blackness,” and “phantasmagoric armorial trophies” did not just start showing in the house; these elements have had time to develop and is now represented as a never ending darkness, which is just like Roderick Usher’s mental illness. Not only does Poe create an image of the house, he also uses lucid details describing the Usher’s mansion and the rooms inside the home to show that Roderick’s mental illness has physically and mentally trapped him. Roderick is a gloomy and mysterious character who looks as if he is dead. Poe describes Roderick’s appearance as one to not easily be forgotten (Poe 152). In Roderick’s mind, he feels as if he has no escape from this illness, which terrifies him. His biggest fear is fear himself. The evil that has overcame his body will take a toll on his life and he is aware of it because he says “I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed no abhorrence of danger, except in it absolute effect-in terror” (Poe 153). As described in the story, the Usher house has rooms that create a somber life and with this creation, Poe is able to portray the kind of life that Roderick Usher is living and will live. Not only is this technique used in “The Fall of the House of

Edgar Allen Poe is a critic of short stories and poetry, and often puts his own theories into his writing. Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” falls into this category in the idea of the single effect. The short story starts with the Narrator going to visit his old friend, Roderick Usher because of a letter Roderick writes to him. The Narrator goes to the house and spends time with Usher, but all starts to go array when Roderick thinks his sister is dead and buries her. She comes out of her tomb and jumps at Usher and the House of Usher falls and Roderick dies. Poe argues that all short stories should have a single effect; a feeling the author should make the reader feel. The single effect of “The Fall of the House of Usher” is terror. Poe creates the single effect of terror through the settings, characters, and elements of the story. He does this through the setting of Usher’s room and Madeline’s tomb; through the characters of Roderick and Madeline Usher; and through the element of the Haunted Palace.

The house seems to be absorbing Usher’s mental health and physical health. Evidence of this is shown by the faltering health and growing fears of Roderick Usher in relation to the growing scariness of the house.

First, in “The Fall of the House of Usher” the author uses the transformation of Roderick Usher to create an

In the story, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, there are many mysterious happenings that go on throughout the story between the characters Roderick Usher and the narrator. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe uses themes such as madness and insanity to connect the house back to Roderick Usher. In the “Fall of The House of Usher”, the narrator goes through many different experiences when arriving to the house. The narrator’s experiences start out as almost unnoticeable in the beginning, turn into bigger ones right before his eyes, and end up becoming problems that cause deterioration of the mind and the house before the narrator even decides to do anything helpful for Roderick and his mental illness. In “The Fall of The

The Fall Of The House of Usher is a terrifying tale of the demise of the Usher family, whose inevitable doom is mirrored in the diseased and evil aura of the house and grounds. Poe uses elements of the gothic tale to create an atmosphere of terror. The decaying house is a metaphor for Roderick Usher’s mind, as well as his family line. The dreary landscape also reflects his personality. Poe also uses play on words to engage the reader to make predictions, or provide information. Poe has also set the story up to be intentionally ambiguous so that the reader is continually suspended between the real and the fantastic.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, sets a tone that is dark, gloomy, and threatening. His inclusion of highly descriptive words and various forms of figurative language enhance the story’s evil nature, giving the house and its inhabitants eerie and “supernatural” qualities. Poe’s effective use of personification, symbolism, foreshadowing, and doubling create a morbid tale leading to, and ultimately causing, the fall of (the house of) Usher.

Roderick Usher sends his childhood friend a letter, crying for company and good memories. As his friend passes the dark tarn and nears the House of Usher, all that is seen is a land of the dark and decaying. The Usher family within “The Fall of the House of Usher,” have lived in the house for generations, a house at one time filled “by good angels, (Being a) radiant palace-reared its head.”

In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” there are three characters the narrator, Roderick Usher, and Madeline Usher. The story starts with the narrator arriving at the Usher family home where both Roderick and Madeline live, Roderick is both physically and mentally ill and Madeline is just mentally ill. The Usher family

The narrator comes to the House to aid his dying friend, Roderick Usher. As he arrives at the House he comes upon an “aura of vacancy and decay… creating a pathologically depressive mood” (Cook). The state of the House is daunting to the narrator – he describes it with such features as “bleak walls”, “eye-like windows”, “rank sedges”, “decayed trees”, and “an utter depression of the soul”. These images foreshadow a less than pleasant future for the narrator and his dear friend Roderick. Poe continues to foreshadow the narrators turn of events with a description of the House’s “dark” and “comfortless” furniture. The House becomes a living hell for the narrator as he watches Roderick’s condition evolve and struggles to understand the mystery tying unfortunate events together. However, as the narrator gradually becomes more enveloped in Roderick and the House’s malady, he seems to develop a malady of his own. While the narrator’s illness is less prominent than that of Roderick and his sister Lady Madeline, the sicknesses are one in the same.

Isolation does not come from being alone, but from being unable to communicate with other people that are not yourself. In 1839 Edgar Allen Poe published the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The unnamed narrator in the story is asked to visit the mansion of an old friend whom he hasn’t talked to in a very long time. The narrator's friend, Roderick is a sick man who suffers from an "acuteness of the senses," Roderick feels that he will die of the fear he feels. After some time Roderick's sister dies and he entombs his sister in one of the vaults under the mansion. As the days pass Roderick becomes more uneasy. The narrator decides to read a book for Roderick in order to pass the night away, but the sounds from the book come to life. Roderick reveals that he has heard these sounds for days, that Madeline had been buried alive and that she is trying to escape. At the same time, she appears, and attacks Roderick and Roderick dies of fear. The narrator escapes the house; the entire house cracks along the break in the frame and crumbles to the ground. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” theme is "being isolated and its resulting lack of human interaction results in madness" symbolically the house acts as a place of isolation, characteristically Roderick is mentally ill and reserved, and the plot serves to describe that the house collapses reveals that living in isolation results in madness. The theme "being isolated and its resulting lack of human interaction results in madness" in the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is conveyed through tone, symbol, and character.

“The Fall of the House of Usher (1939)”, arguably Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short story, is a tale centered around the mysterious House of Usher and its equally indiscernible inhabitants. These subjects are plagued with physical and mental degradation – the Usher siblings suffer from various abnormal ailments and unexplained fears, while the house itself seems to be tethering on the edge of collapse. The gothic elements in the story are distributed generously, and the plot is increasingly ridden with the supernatural as it progresses.