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We painted and read together, or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe in one unceasing radiation of gloom. Madeline soon dies, and Roderick decides to bury her temporarily in the tombs below the house. He wants to keep her in the house because he fears that the doctors might dig up her body for scientific examination, since her disease was so strange to them. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and he notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks, as some do after death. The narrator also realizes suddenly that Roderick and Madeline were twins.
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“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. 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.
“The Haunted Palace”
In 1830, when the house was torn down, two bodies were found in the cellar cavity. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the narrator visits his childhood friend, Roderick Usher.
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Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality--of the constrained effort of the ennuye man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!
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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 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. One can assume that Roderick can see the future with his lustrous and magical eyes.
Madeline Usher
One can interpret the last action in a way that fear of any occurrence manifests it in real life. 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. At the request of Usher, the narrator helps carry the "encoffined" body to an underground vault where the atmosphere is so oppressive that their torches almost go out.
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We know from Poe’s experience in the magazine industry that he was obsessed with codes and word games, and this story amplifies his obsessive interest in naming. “Usher” refers not only to the mansion and the family, but also to the act of crossing a -threshold that brings the narrator into the perverse world of Roderick and Madeline. Roderick’s letter ushers the narrator into a world he does not know, and the presence of this outsider might be the factor that destroys the house. The narrator is the lone exception to the Ushers’ fear of outsiders, a fear that accentuates the claustrophobic nature of the tale. By undermining this fear of the outside, the narrator unwittingly brings down the whole structure.
Poe's Short Stories
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Granted,knowingly allowing his sister to die, when he could save her, is immoral; yetRoderick’s sense of right and wrong has transcended concerns for what is goodfor the Ushers and their perpetuation, and becomes a greater, higher concernfor the future of the human race. It is no wonder, then, that when thehereditary forces have succeeded in joining the brother and sister together inthe house, itself an emblematic agent of those forces, a greater force prevailsas it obliterates the Ushers and their house, truncating the incestuous “stem”of the family for all time. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this—yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars—nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning.
Fear
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. "You must not--you shall not behold this!" said I, shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat. I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan--but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes--an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanour. His air appalled me--but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.
This suggests that when he buries her, he will widen the crack, or fissure, between them. This crack, or division, between the living and the dead will be so critical that it will culminate ultimately in the Fall of the House of Usher. The story opens with the narrator riding alone on a cloudy autumn day to theHouse of Usher. He describes a childhood friendship with the owner, Roderick Usher.Roderick had requested the narrator’s company during his convalescence from anillness. The narrator reflects on the once-great Usher family and that theyhave only one surviving direct line of descendants, comparing the beautiful butcrumbling house to the family living inside. The narrator finds the inside of the house just as spooky as the outside.
In supernatural gothic, weird, and strange things, happenings can be attributed to the supernatural happening. 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.
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