Edgar Poe Fall of House of Usher

Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai Cluj-Napoca
Facultatea de litere
Specializarea Engleză-Spaniolă
Edgar Allan Poe and “The Fall of the House of

Usher”
Edgar Allan Poe și „Prăbușirea casei lui Usher”
Îndrumător științific Absolvent

Conf. Univ. Dr. RAREȘ MOLDOVAN GADJEA RAMONA ALEXANDRA
Cluj-Napoca
2018
Table of contents:
Introduction………………………………………………........3
1.Poe and his “constructiveness”……………………………..5
1.1 Edgar Allan Poe as a controversial author 5

1.2 How Poe builds the horror and the story 9
1.3 Creation of characters, importance of feminine character 13
2. Roderick Usher’s analysis…………………………17
2.1 Physical analysis 17
2.2 Psychological analysis of Roderick Usher 21
3. Relationships and fears……………………………………25
3.1 Roderick Usher’s relationships 25
3.2 Fear and death 30
Conclusions…………………………………………………....35
Annex………………………………………………………….39
Bibliography…………………………………………………..40
2
Introduction
“The Fall of the House of Usher”, written by Edgar Allan Poe, in 1839 is the
American literary piece which I chose to discuss in my work. Poe is one of the most
significant writers who create horror stories, for that his story presents interest. Poe’s themes
include: mysteries, family, illness and death. The themes the author uses in his stories are
dark. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is one of the most spectacular pieces of Poe, because
all the major themes.
From the beginning, the disintegration of the family is one aspect about it I will talk in my
work, what will bring the disintegration of the Ushers, the description of the house and the life
of the characters from the beginning of the story to the end. How the events from the tale will
challenge them and how the mind of the characters will change after the major events in their
life.
Poe’s greatest literary achievement was his renovation of the terror tale what
had been his principal intent, to entertain by means of ‘curdling the blood’, to
use a widely current phrase of the times, into what have been recognized as
some of the most sophisticated creations in psychological fiction in the
English language.1
One particular theme that Poe uses is for me the most spectacular, the horror of this story is
my favorite theme. The horror symbolize Poe:
Poe in the early 1830’s shifted his talents to the writing of fiction. These years
remain the most vague period in his life, but he evidently undertook an
extensive-intensive course of familiarizing himself with what constituted best-
selling short fiction, which then highlighted either horrific, derived from
antecedent Gothic tradition or comic themes or combination of humor and
horror2
1
Benjamin Franklin Fisher, “Poe and the Gothic tradion” in The Cambridge companion to Edgar Allan Poe, ed. by
Kevin J. Hayes (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 78.
2
Fisher, “Poe and the Gothic tradition”, 4.
3
I like the horror Poe inserts in the tale and also what is more surprising is that the narrator is
the storyteller and in the same time he is a character of the tale. Behind the horror elements
from the story, the events which happen are magnificent. The reason I selected this short story
for my work is because horror has a specific place in it. Every part of the structure has
elements of horror and mystery, which make the reader to focus on the action. The events
symbolize the conceptions of Poe, the house will be the place for the entire action which I will
analyze, also the characters of the story and their mental problems and I will debate the
importance of the feminine character with all the characteristics.
Roderick Usher is my favorite character from the story. That is why the most of my work
analyzes the connection of him with other characters, how his life will affect his future actions
and how the disease disintegrates his human condition. The relationship of Roderick with the
narrator and Madeline is also one of my major analyze. This analysis of the characters will
bring after the answers for our questions.
The purpose of my work is to analyze the style of Edgar Allan Poe, how he creates his story
and the story itself. “The fall of the House of Usher” is such a complex story, we will see in
the work, doesn’t matter that the story is short, the length of the story may suggest a simple
tale, but based on the analyze I made in my work I can tell that it is one of the most complex
tales I ever analyze.
“Richard Wilbur noted long ago in his essay ‘The House of Poe’ that Poe’s criticism places a
positive value on the obscuration of meaning , on a dark suggestiveness, on a deliberate
vagueness by means of which the reader’s mind may be set adrift toward the beyond”.3
3
James V. Werner, American Flaneur The Cosmic Physiognomy of Edgar Allan Poe, (Routledge, 2004), 124.
4
Poe and his “constructiveness”.
1.1 Edgar Allan Poe as a controversial author
Edgar Allan Poe was a very controversial personality, his tales were based on Gothic
tradition. This tradition developed a huge impact on his writings, in this context we can see:
“It is a commonplace notion that the Gothic emerged from the rupture in Western thought
between rationalism and Romanticism that occurred in the after half of the eighteenth
century”.4
Poe moved further and his Gothic was influenced by the horror elements, not only a traditional
Gothicism as we can see: “Under the ostensible influence of Walpole, Radcliffe, Brockden
Brown, Coleridge, Irving and the German Romantics Tieck and Hoffman, Poe assimilated the
conventions of Gothic horror”.5
Another point that is important for us is how Poe had written his tales, how he created his
context where the Gothic was inspiration for him, from a simple beginning, the entire tale is
placed in a different form, unexpected things happen and the end is always surprising: “Poe
initially created short stories which, like many of his poems, often, though not exclusively,
feature a trajectory from fairy low-key openings to sensational denouements”.6
Poe’s fascination for Gothic suggests his interest in subjects that will place him in a different
light, Benjamin F. Fisher affirms:
Poe also continue to employ trappings and themes of antecedent Gothicism-

decaying architecture or bleak landscapes and the stereotypical plot of vicious
pursuit of innocence for purposes of lust, money or power often related to
family identity involving physically or emotionally debilitated characters
gender issues, sexuality, and perhaps as some recent critics argue, even racial
issues.7
4
J. Gerald Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction” in The Tales of Poe, ed. by Harold Bloom, (Chelsea
House Publishers, 1987), 111.
5
Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction”, 111.
6
Benjamin F. Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe (Cambridge University Press,2008), 4.
7
Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction, 56.
5
Because of Poe’s fascination for Gothic and horror elements, English critic Edmund Gosse
called the omission of Poe “extraordinary and sinister”8 but “with respect to Gothic fiction, the
ubiquity of corpses (often bleeding pre-naturally) remind us, as Freud would much later, that
the ultimate source of all terror is death itself ”.9
Another important aspect which makes Poe controversial is his personality, mental health and
his behavior: “Anticipating to some extent twentieth-century psychoanalytic and medical
diagnoses of Poe’s ‘condition’, Francis Fairfield published an article in Scribner’s in 1875
arguing that Poe’s antisocial behavior, as well his literary output, resulted from cerebral
epilepsy”.10 The main issue for the critics is a possible mental breakdown which is highlighted
here: “An acute interest in the physiology and physical imagery of death in fact typifies Poe’s
annihilation model. Visible signs of disease, impending death, or dissolution assume as
reminders of the ultimate naturalistic process”.11
Poe’s illness is more than just a disease: “modern criticism and biographers have now
thoroughly debunked the myth of Poe, but many still see him as a brooding, mentally
unbalanced, and suffering artist”.12
Despite this mental issue of Poe, the real problem of the author was alcoholism, this aspect a
lot of critics debated, the impact on his readers was not necessarily a negative one, but it was
the aspect that critics wanted to comment:
Graham for instance, published another sympathetic article in his magazine in

1854, ‘The Genius and Characteristics of the late Edgar Allan Poe’, in which
he admits Poe’s personal failings-with emphasis on the alcoholism – but
excuses them on the grounds of Poe’s poverty and the fact that his genius ‘was
not such as to command a ready or lucrative market. Furthermore, Graham
8
Scott Peeples, The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe (Camden House, 2004), 11.
9
J.Gerald Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction” in The Tales of Poe, ed.by Harold Bloom (Chelsea
10
Peeples, The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe, 12.
11
Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction” , 117.
12
Harold Bloom, Bloom’s Classic Critical views: Edgar Allan Poe, (volume editor Robert T. Tally, Jr. 2008), 5-6.
6
made the unusual claim that Poe’s vices were in no wise reflected in or
connected with his writings.13
Another point of view needs to be included, the importance of his tales, his work, if his vice
affected his work, or only his health, and here we have Baudelaire’s conclusion: “ His
drinking was not a weakness but a tool of the artist, ‘a mnemonic’ means a method of work,
drastic and fatal, but adapted to his passionate nature”.14
Even his vice made a lot of conspiracy, not everybody’s concern was his problem with
alcohol, and his genius was brought to the surface:
Duyckinck had asserted that Poe’s machine-like intellectualism would make

him ‘a greater favorite with scholars than with the people’, but as it turned out,
‘the people would gravitate toward the more romantic image of Poe writing
while high on opium or allegorizing his own tortured psyche in passionate
poems and macabre tales, while late-nineteenth and twentieth-century scholars
were increasingly drawn to Poe the engineer.15
This controversial issue of Poe is in the attention of other critics, Krutch for example, he
understands the term artist, had a defensive reaction:
Krutch’s most important claim is that Poe’s poems and tales should be
appreciated on their own aesthetic terms, without reference to the ‘normal’
outside world; for all his seeming disparagement of his subject, he maintains
that Poe is a great artist, and he clearly aspires to a balanced view of Poe that
neither white-washes his flaws nor devalues his art because of its decadent
subject matter.16
It is important to appreciate the story, when we analyze Poe’s tales because the sentences
bring a feeling, a word that can make us go further through our imagination. Poe is the author
that can put things together and can create a sensational story, also: “occasionally a critic
13
Peeples, The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe , 8.
14
15
16
7
would try to comment on the writing without delving into biography, but for the most part
what commentators found interesting about Poe’s work reflected back his personality”.17
Poe was different, that is sure, also Krutch concerns on his abnormality as an element of the artist,
therefore “And yet, apparently heedless of his started goal, he settles for the explanation that Poe was
neurotic and ‘abnormal’, which is no more of an explanation than that Poe was dipsomaniac”. 18
17
18
Robert L. Carringer, “Poe’s Tales: The Circumscription of space” in The Tales of Poe, ed. by Harold Bloom
(Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 18.
8
1.2 How Poe builds the horror and the story
After reading his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, I wondered how Poe
built his story, and which were his interests that can bring such a great imagination, despite
this aspect, the most genius is how he creates horror. He’s interest for the unknown is his
symbol: “moreover, his use of wan and ghoulish maidens and putrefying corpses as earthly
symbols of spiritual beauty, has all the makings of a typical Poe joke”. 19
According to Scott Peeples:
Yet the fall of “The Fall of the House of Usher” is not an admission of failure
on Poe’s part but a further assertion of the writer’s control, what matters is that
the writer or artist controls the structure, even when that means bringing down
the house through what might be described as ‘controlled demolition’.20
A good example for us about his creation in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is highlighted
by Benjamin Fisher: “not accidentally does Poe give us a tale of disintegrating psyches as well,
which he frames with a mansion that looks like a human head”.21
The short story was written in a period of change that it seems to contain elements that even in
nowadays are hard to understand, people are usually afraid of things they don’t know, are
afraid of inexplicable events. The idea of the evil brings usually terror, sometimes because of
this people used to turn to divinity, to church, to God. The eighteenth century is based on new
events, the curiosity for the inexplicable is the point in which we find:
As indices of those changes, we see in the eighteenth century the appearance

of public cemeteries and the abandonment of services once provided by the
church, the practice of erecting funerary monuments to commemorate the
existence of the common folk, the exhuming of bodies for experimental
19
20
Scott Peeples, “Poe’s ‘constructiveness’ and The fall of the House of Usher” in The Cambridge companion to
Edgar Allan Poe, ed. by Kevin J. Hayes (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 184.
21
Benjamin Franklin Fisher, “Poe and the Gothic tradion” in The Cambridge companion to Edgar Allan Poe, ed.
by Kevin J. Hayes (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 89.
9
purposes, and as noted earlier the appearance of literary and productions with
mortality and grief.22
This massive change for that time was for Poe a great opportunity to take it as an inspirational
resource, according to Smith: “Poe’s ‘constructiveness’ is uniquely American, and his great
contribution to world poetry has been ‘structural’- as an exemplary American, he knew how to
put things together”.23
In this context of change, the Gothic developed new mysterious ideas that were introduced in
literary pieces. People had to accept that this different style is growing. Poe definitely used all
of his inspiration to create structure to his stories, including a lot of scary pieces. Poe didn’t
care how he will be criticized based on his horror stories. We see this in J. Gerald Kennedy’s
quote: “in effect writers of Gothic novels salvaged elements of popular belief-devils, curses,
and spiritual visitations-that had been jettisoned by Christian humanist thought”.24 In “The
Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe focused on the image of the house. It is the first element that
shows how he built the horror: “first and foremost, it is about a house, and is no other Poe tale
is the house itself so control the both a story’s plot and its network of symbolism”.25
For Leila S. May: “The Fall of the House of Usher”, written in mid-century, is prophetic in its
anticipation of a vision of the collapse of a society built on the seemingly secure foundations
of the family”.26
Scott Peeples analyzed parts of Poe’s art. Scoot was fascinated by how Poe combined such
pieces to produce a piece of art. Scott paid attention to the fact that “Poe’s interest was
directed towards the most strange and odd mysteries… All that was incomplete, unsolved,
unexplained, challenged him to pursuit he was bound to complete it with his imagination, and
so he has told of mysterious secret documents, of inexplicable crimes and discoveries.”27
22
J.Gerald Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction” in The Tales of Poe, ed. by Harold Bloom (Chelsea
23
24
Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction” , 112.
25
Scott Peeples, “Poe’s ‘constructiveness’ and The Fall of the House of Usher” in The Cambridge companion to
Edgar Allan Poe, ed. by Kevin J. Hayes (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 179.
26
Leila S. May, “Sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature: the brother-sister bond in Poe’s Fall of the House of
Usher” in Studies in short fiction (vol. 30, 1993), 72.
27
Peeples, The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe , 19.
10
The horror and terror is what I noticed first in Poe’s short story. The presentation of his art
contains a lot of shocking visual imagines, he inserts horror elements carefully. In the
beginning the level of fear is low, but increases with every sentence: “Poe is a master of the
mood of diseased mental life, and the interest of someone or other of these semi-hysterical
moods many of his most uncannily prevailing romances are written”.28
The sensation of fear is highlighted by Poe with: “most key moments of action in Poe
conspicuously involve severely restrictive enclosures, from stuffy Gothic rooms to deep, dark
pits to damp, musty caves to whirlpools, coffins, tombs, a various kinds of secret recesses
within a wall or underneath a floor”.29 In the story he uses all of his pieces and creates a
balance. For us as readers, it is important to get in the story step by step, this will develop
interest, curiosity in what will happen next, and Poe leads us at the exact point: “even as we’re
‘lost’ in the House of Usher, the self-referential devices-elaborate sentence structures, texts
within text, relentless use of doubling and reflection-keep pushing us back outside the story,
reminding us that Poe is the real master of the house”.30
Poe uses the house to integrate horror in the story. We see that the house is ‘alive’, despite the
fact that the building is an architecture. He inserts life through it and we can also see that in
Peeples’s quote: “paradoxically, the house comes to life only to collapse and die, but for Poe,
the paradox work both ways: the fall of the house gives rise to the story, which ‘lives’ off
paradox and other uncanny verbal structures”.31 We see a similar reaction in the main
character: “Roderick believes that the house dead stones that make up his house are sentient,
and given the fact that they collapse in sympathy with his fall, the story suggests that the house
is in some way alive”.32
28
Lewis E. Gates, “Edgar Allan Poe” in Bloom’s Classic Critical views, ed. by Harold Bloom (volume editor: Robert
T. Tally, Jr. 2008), 156.
29
30
Edgar Allan Poe (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 186.
31
Peeples, “Poe’s ‘constructiveness’ and The Fall of the House of Usher”, 188.
32
Peeples, “Poe’s ‘constructiveness’ and The Fall of the House of Usher”, 183.
11
Another point that needs to be discussed is the narrator’s description of the house. It inspires
fear “dark draperies hung upon the walls”.33 The dark mood is present through his words: “I
felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow”.34 The image of sadness is brought to the
narrator through everything that surrounds him: “the room in which I found myself was very
large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and painted, at so vast a distance from the
black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within”.35
The sentiment of fear can be transmitted easily through characters. To increase the sensation
of fear, Poe uses the narrator at first to give us the image of a mysterious house, after that Poe
uses Roderick to create chaos, but that is further, when his audience is prepared step by step.
Therefore, “the most forceful insistence upon the power of writings or art to ‘move’ its
audience comes at the story’s climax, as the narrator reads to Usher from ‘The Mad Trist’ of
Sir Launcelot Canning”.36
33
Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, ed. by Henry Frowde (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, New
York and Toronto, 1996). 203.
34
Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, ed. by Henry Frowde (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, New
York and Toronto, 1996), 204.
35
Edgar Allan Poe, ed. by Kevin J. Hayes (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 184-85.
36
Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 203.
12
1.3 Creation of characters, importance of feminine character
Edgar Allan Poe had written his story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, with a genius
complexity. The psychological issues of his characters and the subjects were shocking. This
idea was expressed by French symbolist Charles Baudelaire, who said: “the first time that I
opened one of his books I was shocked and delighted to see not only subjects which I had
dreamed of, but sentences which I had thought and which we he had written twenty years
before”.37
Poe was traumatized in his childhood by the death of his mother, “Poe witnessed his mother’s
death before he turned three, and this traumatic event caused him not only to seek desperately
for replacement caregivers but re-enact this bereavement in his poetry and prose”.38 This
factor made him create his characters after a different typology. The typical characters are not
for Poe, he creates supernatural characters. Another important fact is Poe’s interest in the
‘two’, the idea of twins is a characteristic for Poe:
An interest in twins was by no means unique to Poe, who, we might say,

inherited that interest as part of Romantic tradition. The idea that two persons
could be so closely related that, in certain instances, they think and act
identically, or nearly so, held out great fascination for the Romantic
temperament.39
37
38
Karen Weeks, “Poe’s feminine ideal” in The Cambridge companion to Edgar Allan Poe, ed. by Kevin J. Hayes
(Cambridge University Press, 2004), 149.
39
Benjamin F. Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 66.
13
At first Poe creates the house in which the events will happen, after that, his priority was the
role of his characters. His fascination for the twins is highlighted in the story, the characters
attract the audience’s interest. He attracts the interest more on the lives of the characters, than
on the house.
Benjamin Fisher suggests that:
Even more successful, perhaps as the portrayal of a disintegrating mind, “The

Fall of the House of Usher” (1838), return us to the motif of twins, in this casa
a brother and a sister whose existence is bound up in each other and with
their ‘house’- the stone mansion and the concept of the house as a
people/family or mind.40
Poe’s concept of the twins was also analyzed by Hegel, and in “The Phenomenology of Mind”
he wrote: “they are the same blood, which, however, in them has entered into a condition of
stable equilibrium”.41 This could represent the balance of mental equilibrium. In my point of
view for Poe the stability in his story was much more important. Even if initially it seems that
the story is created in a chaotic manner, Poe makes the feminine and masculine characters
stand out. Due to the fact that there is only one female in the story, Madeline’s character is
highlighted and for Poe “the poetic women are already in the grave, and the fictional ones are
not far from this permanently silenced state stereotypical ‘feminine’ quiescence most typifies
the stile-living heroine, whether she is light-or dark-featured.42
The attention of Poe for feminine character is special, he used in “The

Fall of the House of Usher” Madeline, the twin sister of Roderick, her
40
41
Leila S. May, “Sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature: the brother-sister bond in Poe’s Fall of the House of
Usher” in Studies in short fiction (vol.30, 1993), 81.
42
Karen Weekes, “Poe’s feminine ideal” in The Cambridge companion to Edgar Allan Poe, ed. by Kevin J. Hayes
(Cambridge University Press,2004), 160.
14
destine was specific dramatic, she represents the victim who suffers in
coffin, here we see an important thing which shows: “among a
characteristic forms that appear at Poe’s centers are girls in coffins,
murdered victims, and natural images of destruction”.43
Madeline is the only feminine character in the story and because of this Poe paid more
attention in her creation. He chose a name that had a biblical connotation: “Madeline’s name
also means ‘lady of the house’, which Madeline Usher as surely is, and ‘tower if strength’.
Because Madeline’s illness, this last connotation may seem ironic, although it is altogether
appropriate and realistic, it subtly wrought by means of Poe’s imaginative vision”.44
The illness of Madeline is highlighted by the narrator in “The Fall of the House of Usher”,
who accepted her illness as the cause of her death. We do not know the exact reason she died,
it is just presumed that she died because of it: “the disease which had entombed the lady in the
maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of strictly cataleptical character, the
mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and suspiciously lingering smile upon
the lip which is so terrible in death”45
Despite this aspect Poe goes further in creation by the entombing of Madeline. It is one of his
biggest impacts for readers. The entire process is traumatic because she is a beautiful young
woman and she must be entombed and “since there are more male then female characters in
‘Usher’, the entombing of Madeline while she still alive may signal Roderick’s and his
friend’s retreat from realities in life, which encompass physical health and normal sexuality -
as Poe’s generation would have known it, i.e. heterosexuality”.46
Another major aspect must be analyzed, is the return of Madeline, after she is entombed and
theoretically dead. Poe changes everything by bringing her back. Here, the fact which is
unknown and mysterious, is how Madeline comes back?
43
44
Benjamin F. Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe (Cambridge University Press,2008), 79.
45
Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Massachusetts, 1997), 213.
46
Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe, 81.
15
The possible answer is that Poe gives her supernatural powers, from a fragile young woman
she becomes a powerful character. It is possible that: “Madeline is a vampire, or rather, she is
a vampire figure adroitly refashioned by Poe to symbolize psycho-physical forces that relate
her to Roderick, to their house and to the narrator”.47
Vampirism is also a theme that involve horror and terror. The powerful vampire is full of
supernatural forces, the blood associated with death, the idea that sucking the blood of a
human being for eternal life, the presence of a coffin as a bed for them, is a characteristic of
vampirism. It is a possibility that Poe used this idea to create his feminine character, but
“precise sources of Poe’s knowledge of vampirism have not been documented, but his
characterization of Madeline comports well with general vampire lore”.48
Also, “as a vampire figure Madeline would have had little trouble in feeling herself from the
coffin and the burial chamber where she was kept to frustrate grave robbers. Her looking more
alive after she is presumed dead is another vampire trait”.49 Poe is bringing her back to life,
but he only brings her back to intensify the story, her return and image being the supreme
horror in the story.
47
48
49
16
Roderick Usher’s analysis
2.1 Physical analysis
In the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe puts the entire action around
the main character. He starts the story with Roderick sending the letter to the narrator, asking
to come over. Roderick is somehow a reflection of Poe, features of Roderick can be associated
with Poe, the mental disease of both are almost the same, Roderick was depressed, Poe was
also depressed, the mental pain that is mentioned by Roderick from the beginning, the idea of
death, of a family ‘curse’. This is Roderick’s paranoia, he was a superstitious character, but to
be more clear for the reader and to be able to create an image of Roderick “Poe provides
physiognomic details for the reader to interpret the character’s mysterious nature, origin and
destiny”.50
In the story the narrator is the character who speaks about Roderick, he is the one who makes
description for us and “the narrator seems able to interpret the face to a limited extent, this
information is conveyed to the reader”51
The narrator details Roderick physic:
A cadaverousness of complexion, an eye large liquid, and a luminous beyond

comparison; lips somewhat thin and a very pallid but of a surpassingly
beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of
nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely molded chin, speaking, in its
want of prominence, if a want if moral energy; hair of a more than web-like
softness expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a
countenance not easily to be forgotten.52
The description is somehow like a suggestion for the reader, how he should interpret
Roderick, as a memorable character, what caught my attention as a reader was the ‘lips
somewhat […] very pallid’ which can be a sign of a possible disease. The whiteness of his
face is not normal for a healthy person, “in his physiognomic portraits, Poe devotes
50
James V. Werner, The Cosmic Physiognomy of Edgar Allan Poe: American Flaneur (Routledge, 2004), 75.
51
Werner, The Cosmic Physiognomy of Edgar Allan Poe, 74.
52
Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of mystery and Imagination, 204.
17
considerable attention to the facial features of extraordinary characters, as his narrator
explicitly and self-consciously scan these faces for clues to their mysterious history and
meaning.”53
Another mention of Roderick’s features that are analyzed by the narrator are:
His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirit
seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision-that abrupt,
weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation-that leaden, self-
balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed
in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of
his most intense excitement.54
In this type of description we can see that, “in some tales, Poe provides the reader with
sufficient details about this ‘strangeness’ to approach a more complete physiognomic
reading”55 and also “the narrator can come closer in identifying the source of Usher’s
strangeness than recognizing it to be the exaggeration of his original features, especially the
‘now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the new miraculous luster of the eye”.56
Later, the narrator noticed “the once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more, and
a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance”57 and that
“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 hole demeanor”.58
In my point of view Roderick Usher’s physical features are much more present than the body
features. Roderick is described more by the facial features, the author does not mention his
hands for example, or how tall he is. There is a connection between his facial features and his
mind. The description follows more closely the lines of traditional physiognomic analysis: the
narrator observes that Usher has ‘a finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of prom
53
James V. Werner, The Cosmic Physiognomy of Edgar Allan Poe: American Flaneur (Routledge, 2004),73.
54
Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 204.
55
56
57
58
18
correlates Usher’s particular behavior to more generalized stereotypes (‘the drunkard’ and ‘the
opium eater’).59
Roderick Usher is a very complex character in “The Fall of the House of Usher”. As main
character of the story he is also an artist. After the narrator came to his house, Poe described
the artistic features of Roderick, telling us about his talent through a painting, “a small picture
presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls,
smooth, white, and without interruption or device”60, and this painting “by the utter simplicity,
by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention”61, “if ever mortal painted
an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher”.62
In my opinion, for Roderick, the painting was more than a simple talent. He was a refugee in
his art, when he painted he found himself in another world, he could create whatever he
wanted, however he wanted, there are no limits and that is why “Roderick as artist figure may
suggest that he feels no bounds of ordinary human love or decency”.63 The paintings are
thoughts of his mind, a lot of visual future in his dark vision.
Roderick was also talented in music, another aspect of this feature which is highlighted by the
narrator. It was also gloomy, “his long improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears”.64 In
my opinion Roderick’s songs were more than gloomy, because a dirge is a funeral song, sung
by a woman in the morning, a funeral song for dead people, or for people that are about to die.
Roderick predicts his future here, through the song that makes an allusion to a dark future. He
knew that death will come. Roderick knew it in his way that this is why his paintings were full
of unclear images, shadows, and that is why the dirge is present for the reader. It is like an
anticipation of death, somehow he was prepared to confront his destiny, but in the same time
he was terrified of what will be, how he will end, this being one of his mental stresses. The
agitation because his time was limited. This mental stress was like an illness, sucking the life
out of him, making him suffer in silence.
59
Werner, The Cosmic Physiognomy of Edgar Allan Poe ,77.
60
61
62
63
Benjamin Franklin Fisher, “Poe and the Gothic tradition” in The Cambridge companion to Edgar Allan Poe, ed.
64
19
“It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar which
gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his performances”.65
65
20
2.2 Psychological analysis of Roderick Usher
Another important fact in “The Fall of the House of Usher”, is Roderick Usher’s
psychological analysis. Poe emphasizes on the psychology of the character by highlighting the
thoughts of Roderick. Also the mind of the character is the place where the features of his
disease arise.
“David S. Reynolds indicates the phrenology directly influenced Poe’s literary theory, which
was based upon distinct portions of the mind devoted to difficult impulses”.66
From the beginning of the story, the narrator is informed by Roderick that his problems were
based on the family inheritance: “the result was discoverable, he added, in that silent yet
importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had molded the destinies of his family,
and which made him what I now saw him”.67
Roderick confesses about the family destiny that indicates why only he and his sister are alive.
They are the last Ushers, and through his words the possibility of ending the same way as the
rest of the family is Roderick’s preoccupation. The life and death of the twins, “it was, he said,
a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy-a mere
nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off”.68
This “family curse”, brings Roderick a lot of anxiety, the melancholy of the end, suffering of
mental pain, the depression seems almost normal, his incapacity to save his sister from the
tragic destiny, the thought that both will end soon, is like an illness,
the writer spoke of acute disorder which oppressed him and of an earnest
desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of
attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his
malady.69
For Roderick the presence of the narrator was necessary, because he was suffering alone with
his sister. He needed to talk in order to release his mind. His psyche was full of dark thoughts,
66
James V. Werner, The Cosmic Physiognomy of Edgar Allan Poe: American Flaneur (Routledge, 2004), 73.
67
68
69
21
his own psyche was instable. The narrator is present in the story as his childhood friend that
was his companion in this psychological travel.
Poe’s protagonist exhibit a morbid preoccupation with various forms of

physical disintegration (especially decay and putrefaction), and Poe has an
almost clinical regard the representation of mental excitement especially those
forms of terror that are aroused by the prospect of death or derangement for
his narrators.70
Roderick is excited by the narrator’s presence in his house. The narrator notices that “Usher
arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious
warmth”71, this was a different Roderick, he was happy to see the narrator, his psyche was
changing in that moment, seeing the narrator was like a fresh breath for Roderick.
Because they haven’t seen each other for a long time, they talk for a long time. Madeline’s
name was mentioned only once because Roderick was in pain and started crying. After that
Roderick’s paintings are mentioned, the narrator analyzes them and notices that darkness is
present in every one, therefore the psychological problem of Roderick is present even in his
art. Roderick tells the narrator that his twin sister Madeline is ill. He is concerned about her
health, her being his only relative and them having a strong connection as twins, his mental
health might get worse.
After only a few days, Roderick tells the narrator that Madeline is no more, and asks for the
help of the narrator to bury her in their own home, so she will not be the subject of people’s
curiosities.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable
influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having informed me
abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he started his intention of
preserving her corpse for a fortnight (previously to its final interment), in one
of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building.72
70
(Chelsea House Publishers, 1987), 17
71
72
Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 211-12.
22
Hypochondria is excessive worry about being sick. Those that suffer from
hypochondria are called hypochondriacs. Hypochondriacs have anxiety that
they are constantly ill. They truly believe that something is wrong with them
and visit doctors frequently to get diagnosed. Hypochondriacs don’t act this
way for attention, but rather, they have serious concerns and anxiety about
their well-being.73
The narrators calls Roderick “hypochondriac”, and if we analyze the psyche of Roderick there
are sing of this illness, and it is important to know that this disease “onset can occur at any
age, but it tends to manifest in early adulthood. Illness anxiety disorder often occurs with the
psychiatric conditions, which may include depression, an anxiety disorder, or a personality
disorder”.74
Roderick’s psychological problems are more obvious as the story goes on, the narrator starts
to realize that Roderick is really instable “and know, some days of bitter grief having elapsed,
am observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary
manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected of forgotten”.75
After the entombment of Madeline, Roderick’s mental situation became worst, the panic was
overwhelming, his words were full of agitation and fear: “and you have not seen it? , he said
abruptly after having stared about him for some moments in silence-you have not seen it?-but,
stay! You shall”.76
Illness anxiety disorder, formally called hypochondriasis or hypochondria,

mental disorder characterized by an excessive preoccupation with illness and a
tendency of fear or believe that one’s has a serious disease on the basis of the
presence of insignificant physical signs or symptoms. Illness anxiety disorder
is thought to be derived from the misinterpretation of normal bodily functions
and cues, thereby precipitating health-related anxiety.77
73
Study.com/academy/lesson/hypochondriasis-disorder-treatment-symtoms-definition-causes.html
74
Study.com/academy/lesson/hypochondriasis-disorder-treatment-symtoms-definition-causes.html
75
76
77
http://www.brittanica.com/science/ilness/-anxiety-disorder
23
When Roderick becomes anxious, the narrator reads some paragraphs from a book to calm
him down: “I was however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope
that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of
mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I
should read”.78
The narrator again calls him “hypochondriac” because the story that is read by the narrator
emphasizes the hypochondriac symptoms. The mental disorder is at it’s highest level, here we
can also think about madness.
In psychogenic pain the main feature is a persistent complaint of pain in the

absence of organic disease and with evidence of a psychological cause. The
pattern of pain may not conform to the known anatomic distribution of the
nervous system. Psychogenic pain may occur as part of hypochondriasis or as
a symptom of a depressive disorder.79
78
79
http://www.brittanica.com/science/mental-disorder#ref406398
24
Relationships and fears
3.1 Roderick Usher’s relationships
Roderick Usher is the main character in the short story “The Fall of the House of
Usher”. The entire action is created around his personality but only through the narrator’s
perspective. From the beginning of the story we see the relationship between the narrator and
Roderick.
The narrator is the storyteller for the readers, but he is also participating to the entire action. In
the beginning of the story, the narrator presents the type of relationship he has with Roderick
“its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many
years had elapsed since our last meeting”.80 They known each other since childhood, but the
initial connection was interrupted for years, until the narrator receives a letter to come and
keep Roderick company. The childhood relationship between them was pretty strong, the
narrator affirms through his words: “although, as boys we had been intimate associates, yet I
really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual” 81 and also
about Usher’s family “that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always,
with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain”.82
In the entire story the relationship between Roderick Usher and the narrator is told by the
narrator, after the first meeting between them the narrator affirms “we sat down, and for some
moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe”. 83
Next information is given by Roderick about the situation of Madeline, the narrator is
informed about the actual situation of the Usher’s family where
he admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar

gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more
palpable origin-to the serve and long-continued illness-indeed to the evidently
80
81
82
Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 201
83
25
approaching dissolution-of a tenderly beloved sister, his sole companion for
long years, his last and only relative on earth.84
The illness of Madeline is the reason why Roderick was depressed, because she was his only
relative and the disease could end her life in any moment, “her decease, he said, with a
bitterness which I can never forget, would leave (him the hopeless and the fragile) the las of
the ancient race of Usher”85, if that happens the only member of Usher family will be him. The
thought that Madeline could die shows us the strong connection and love between the twins,
and Roderick’s concern about his sister.
After his confession about Madeline’s illness, it is presented the habits of Roderick, which he
is sharing with his friend, the narrator affirms: “we painted and read together, or I listened as if
in a dream to the wild improvisation of his speaking guitar”, therefore the narrator was present
in every activity Roderick made, the artistic pieces were actions that made them develop the
relationship to another step. After Roderick confesses about his concern about his sister,
Roderick involves his friend, the narrator in his daily habits so he can get through this hurt
more easily. Also shows the trust Roderick has in him. This time they spent together
symbolizes a good quality time as the narrator suggests: “I shall ever bear about me a memory
of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher”.86
The quality time they spent was appreciated by both, the confidence of Roderick in the
narrator was stronger. When Roderick tells the narrator about Madeline, that she is no more, it
will involve the narrator deeper, therefore “at the request of Usher, I personally aided him in
the arrangements for the temporary entombment”87. His help was necessary, in this way the
request of Roderick was accomplished. “The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore
it to its vest”.88
Another point which must be analyzed is their psyche after this entombment process, this
terrifying action is affecting the character’s mind and emotions, and “if the narrator is
witnessing a drama of psychosomatic implications playing out before him, and if that drama
84
85
86
87
88
26
mimes his own emotional physical state, his angst is understandable (to us, if not to him)”.89
Such a dramatic thing as the entombment of Madeline by Usher and the narrator is
unforgettable, by this episode Roderick involved the narrator not only physical but also
psychologically.
After the entombment of Madeline, the behavior of Roderick was different, the narrator saw
that his mental disorder was obvious, and after that the narrator felt mental changes on
himself: “it was no wonder that his condition terrified-that it infected me”.90 The narrator
mentions how seeing Roderick in such a deplorable condition also affected his mental health
as well. Roderick’s disintegration will bring his own disintegration.
One night, when the storm came and Roderick’s panic was at its limit, the role of narrator was
to keep him calm, even if he was in the same situation, the narrator takes the position of the
defender. He wants to calm Usher and he requires: “you must not-you shall not behold this!
Said I, shuddering, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat”91,
for the narrator was important to maintain Usher’s calm, for his own benefit, because if
Roderick mentally falls, the next who will fall would be the narrator himself.
The narrator’s support for Roderick confirms the strength of their relationship, he finds a way
to distract Roderick’s attention from the sounds and storm through the story from a book,
“here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall listen: -and so we will pass
away this terrible night together”.92
89
Benjamin F. Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe, (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 79.
90
91
92
27
The relationship with his twin sister was another point that should be analyzed. Roderick was
very attached to his sister, she was his last relative, and more important, they were twins, so
the connection of the two was created between them even before they were born.
Even if in the beginning of the story we see the brother-sister love, critics made a lot of
assumptions about the relationship between the twins, and “some readers believe that
Roderick and Madeline committed incest, and that act creates their tragedy”.93 Also Benjamin
F. Fisher sustains his idea of the sexual possibility between the two brothers by analyzing the
name and his assumption is that: “Madeline’s name, which may mean ‘Magdalen’, ‘lady of the
house’, and tower of strength’, has sexual implications, the last meaning creating a deft irony
in its phallicness”.94
The death of Madeline is also a controversial part to analyze, her brother is involved in her
destiny. Madeline is the feminine sister who is meant to die, “furthermore, that the death of a
beautiful woman is most poetic of all themes may involve wordplay on Poe’s own name and
career”95. “The death of a beautiful woman being the most Poe-etic [emphasis mine] of all
themes adds ironic implications to this of his quoted/cited dictum”.96
In the, Poe doesn’t mention such thing, the relationship that Poe presents in his tale is a
relationship between brother and sister, both sick, with mental issues and disintegrating
features. But Benjamin Fisher analyzed the possibility of incestuous relationship saying that:
“Roderick Usher may, on one hand, descend from the terrifying Gothic villain in his treatment
of Madeline, he may have committed incest with her, and then in a fit of guilt and remorse as a
sickens, with an admixture, nonetheless, of power mania-he buries her alive”.97
Benjamin Fisher’s assumption is a very interesting one, because this assumption can explain
Roderick’s action, why he buried his sister? If we may think at their situation, the fact that
they were alone in the house, Roderick is a man, sexual desire is a normal thing, even for
Madeline, but if they committed incest or not we don’t know certainly.
93
94
95
96
97
28
The relationship between Roderick and Madeline as sexual partners is not given exactly, but if
we analyze the sexual part, Poe had written the tale in a mysterious way, inevitable we put a
question mark about it, “Lawrence argues that the trouble with Poe and the male lovers who
narrate several of his stories is that they refuse to listen in isolation to the isolate Holy Ghost
‘The Ushers’, brother and sister, betrayed the Holy Ghost in themselves”98, Lawrence
assumption is his conclusion about the twins, since the sexual intercourse between relatives is
considerate a sin, if the Ushers committed the sin, there will be consequences. This sin was
seen at rich and powerful families, with high social status to maintain the fortune and the
kingdoms from generation to generation, but in “The Fall of the House of Usher” such thing is
not mentioned.
“They would love, they would merge, they would be as one thing. So they dragged each other-
down into death. For the Holy Ghost says you must not be as one thing with another being” 99 ,
in this quote Lawrence suggests that the destiny of the Usher is decided by sexual intercourse,
the twins should stay as individual identities, their union through sex should mean the moment
in which both are convicted to death.
The narrator never mention that the twins were more than brother and sister. Poe in his story
presents more the psychological side of both, the depression and the melancholy of both,
which can be a sign of guilt, but also can be the result of losing the entire family. Being the
only Ushers in life, can be their reason of sadness.
The relationship between the narrator and Madeline was distant, he never talked to her, the
only thing he did was to help Roderick to entomb her, and the two didn’t develop a
relationship.
98
99
29
3.2 Fear and death
Roderick Usher’s personality was affected by his sensibility to things that would
normally be ordinary. This sensibility of Usher is strange, and the reason why he was affected
was not told. If it is since his childhood or he developed this sensibility in his adulthood.
He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food
was alone endurable, he could wear only garments of certain textures; the
odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint
light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments,
which did not inspire him with horror.100
His sensibility to light could mean that he suffers from a condition called “light sensitivity,
also known as photophobia, is a condition where you are unable to tolerate light”.101 As the
narrator mentions “even a faint light”, in his words Roderick was affected by this condition, it
is important to know that “when you have photophobia, any light source such as street lamp,
headlight, sunlight, fires and fluorescent light, can cause discomfort”.102 The narrator was very
specific when he described the condition of Roderick, and how “the level of discomfort will
depend on the severity of your photophobia”103, from this aspect the conclusion is that
Roderick was at a high stage of this condition.
The narrator also talks about his food, Roderick’s senses were sensitive to “the most insipid
food”, and another question, is why he was sensitive to food? Such things aren’t told by the
narrator exactly, but this could mean health problems, and also skin problems “he could wear
only garments of certain texture”, usually if a person is with sensitive skin or skin problems
must wear only certain textures. Simple stimulus as “odors of all flowers” for Usher were
oppressive and uncomfortable.
100
101
www.improveeyessighthq.com/light-sensitivity.html
102
www.improveeyessighthq.com/light-sensitivity.html
103
www.improveeyessightq.com/light-sensitivity.htlm
30
The courage of Roderick to confront his issues was highlighted by the fact that this conditions,
as the narrator said “did not inspire him with horror”, which means he accepted his life in the
way it was.
Roderick’s disintegrating condition was a sign of fear, the idea that the “end” is near, made the
narrator reflect about future, about the ending of life, he was melancholic and scared:
I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect-in terror.

In this unnerved, in this pitiable, condition I feel that the period will sooner or
later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle
with grim phantasm, Fear.104
Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet

unendurable, I threw in my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no
more during the night), and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable
condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the
apartment.105
After being so much time with Roderick, the narrator’s feelings started to change, he reflects
about life and about the things that happened since he got there, the sensation of fear is
transmitted from Roderick to the narrator. The episode from where the fear is over the narrator
and Roderick is when the storm begins “except that an instinctive spirit prompted me to
certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long
intervals, I knew not whence”106, and in that moment the narrator tries to explain the events to
Roderick through logic thoughts: “these appearances, which bewilder you, are merely
electrical phenomena not uncommon-or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the
rank miasma of the tarn”.107
The event emphasis the emotional impact of the characters:
A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there
were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and
104
Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 206
105
106
107
31
the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon
the turrets of the house), did not prevent our perceiving the life-like
velocity points against each other, without passing away into the
distance.108
In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe used the event which involved Madeline to
emphasize the fear of Roderick, through this particular part the story of Poe is a masterpiece.
“Around 1839, however, the need that this motif represented appears to have been
significantly modified of fulfilled (or perhaps he merely tired of it); for after Roderick Usher
collapses into death in his dead sister’s embrace, the impulses ceases to provide the stimulus
for Poe’s best work”.109
Robert L. Carringer also affirms: “that is, in terms of his theory of fiction, a tale must have an
absolute consistency of tone and atmosphere in order for it to achieve a unified effect; a
circumscribed setting is part his overall economy of form”.110
The presence of Madeline is important in “The Fall of the House of Usher”, because it is the
moment when Roderick’s fear is at the highest point. “Later tales of a woman’s presence
haunting her survivor, who has whatever way killed her, become more insistent in arousing
terror in the male protagonist, because of his ill treatment of the female in, culminating with
death scene in “The Fall of the house of Usher”.111
If we analyze these events Poe includes in his story, we can see that: “unlike his
contemporaries, he refused to soften or idealize mortality and kept the essential “horror” in
view, but he also moved beyond the Gothic formula to explore divergent conceptions of
death”.112
Later, after the storm, and the tumultuous noises that terrified Roderick, the feeling that
something more powerful will come, we can see that when Roderick is addressing the
108
109
110
Robert L. Carringer, “Poe’s Tales: The Circumscription of space”, 19.
111
112
J. Gerald Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction” in The Tales of Poe, ed. by Harold Bloom (Chelsea
32
narrator: “Not hear it?-yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long-long-long many minutes, many
hours, many days, have I heard it-yet I dared not-oh pity me, miserable wretch that I am!-I
dared not-I dared not speak!”113, the narrator is emotionally overwhelmed by the events which
are around him, the repetition of his words suggests that he realizes that the events were real,
and it was not only in his imagination, a moment of reality, the consequences for what they
have done, “we put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell
you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them-many, many
days ago-yet I dared not-I dared not to speak!”114
When Roderick realizes that he was not the only one who felt the terror and the events were
heard by the narrator too, his terrifying feeling became more intense: “here he sprang furiously
to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul-
“Madman”! I tell you that she now stands without the door!”115
“But without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of lady Madeline of
Usher”116, this image of her coming back was the most terrifying moment for both male
characters, they knew that this event will foretell the end. Her image was horrifying: “there
was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion
of her emaciated frame”117, the most shocking image Poe puts in his story is definitely this
image of Madeline.
“If she represents what Roderick fears and tries to “burry”, her return as an appalling vampire
figure”118 and “the blood on her person may put her as a vampire of the mere entertainment
stamp, but it may also symbolize the reality of life itself, which nobody escapes, and which
concludes in death”.119
After she was presented as a horror female figure, the end of Roderick was just a question of
time “for a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold-then,
with a low moaning cry, felt heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
33
and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had
anticipating”.120
“As in many others vampire stories, Madeline’s falling upon Roderick represents her claiming
his will, and therefore his dying from fear, the stress of which can bring about death”.121
“Alone in a landscape of nightmare, the Gothic hero experienced the dark side of Romantic
freedom: existential disorientation, wrought by the loss of defining structures”.122 Death is the
main theme of human existentialism “Ernest Becker’s analysis demonstrates that we
experience death as a “complex symbol” that changes human beings pass through successive
stages of consciousness”.123
The story of Poe after the death of the twins presents the narrator who is the only character
who survived this event, and later by looking back at the sad image of the house: “the radiance
was that of the full, setting and blood-red moon which now shore vividly through that once
barely-discernible fissure of which I have before spoken as extending from roof of the
building, in a zigzag direction, to the base”.124
After the fall of the Ushers, the narrator sees the fall of the house: “my brain reeled as I saw
the mighty walls rushing asunder-there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of
a thousand waters-and the deep and dark tarn at my feet closed sullenly, and silently over the
fragments of the “House of Usher”.125
The story ends with the death of the twins, the fall of the house, Roderick killed by his fear:
“Madeline’s avenging return results in the death of the Usher twins, Roderick indeed dying
from very fear of fear itself, which, he remarked earlier, would bring about his death”.126
120
121
122
J. Gerald Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction” in The Tales of Poe, ed. by Harold Bloom (Chelsea
123
Kennedy, “Phantasm of Death in Poe’s Fiction” in The Tales of Poe, 117.
124
Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery an Imagination, 220.
125
Poe, Tales of Mystery an Imagination, 220.
126
34
Conclusions
In the explicitness of the material discussed, we see how Edgar Allan Poe created his
short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the house which was created after human
features. “Baudelaire cherished Poe’s dark vision of human nature: “this author, product of a
century infatuated with itself, child of a nation more infatuated with itself than any other, has
clearly seen, has imperturbably affirmed the natural wickedness of man”.127
The way he linked the house with the structures of the human is something genius, such things
we don’t see usually. The importance of the presentation of the house from the beginning of
the story is associated with the Usher family, even the structure of the house looks massive
and strong, it begins to crack in the same way the Usher’s mental health declines. From my
point of view, this aspect about the house is presented in the beginning of the story by the
narrator because in this way the mood and the atmosphere involve the reader in the story.
During the reading, I focused on the narrator’s words, the image that was surrounding him,
and about how he saw the house and what was in his mind in those moments.
I looked upon the scene before me--upon the mere house, and the simple
landscape features of the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant eye--
like windows--upon a few rank sedges--and upon a few white trunks of
decayed trees--with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no
earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon
opium--the bitter lapse into everyday life--the hideous dropping off of the veil.
There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed
dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into
aught of the sublime.128
After the presentation of the house, another important aspect in the story is how the character
was built; how the characters of Poe are suffering from mental diseases. “From there, we move
on to psychological readings whose aim is to explain traits of human consciousness generally
rather than Poe’s personality, as well as humanist new criticism that also focuses on Poe’s
127
128
35
insights into human behavior and values generally”.129 Such thing as illness or mental disease
of the characters made the construction of the story. In my opinion, Poe’s vision was to create
Roderick with features of himself. For me, Roderick Usher is the most controversial character
and I think he is the reflection of Poe. His personality as main character in the story can
suggest that Poe in his imagination created a character of his own reflection, including his
mental problems, anxiety and depression.
Based on the mental disease, the action of the story takes a tumultuous change, the personality
of Roderick and his disease will bring the tragically episode of Lady Madeline and her
disappearance.
Roderick’s actions are the result of his illness, the entombment of Madeline was the moment
when he lost the control and the disease was stronger than the love for his sister. Poe created
Roderick with this disease with a reason, because without this disease the reaction of Roderick
to bury his sister couldn’t be possible. It is obvious that Roderick had some mental problems,
because to bury someone, in his case, his beloved sister, it’s a sign of possible madness. The
possibility that the two of them had committed incest was also in my opinion the fact that
could bring as consequence the death of Madeline. But if they committed incest and this thing
was the reason why Madeline must die, Roderick will be free of guilt and Poe didn’t have any
punishment for his male character?
For Poe the death of Madeline is primordial, because this process of entombment will involve
the narrator, to help his friend Roderick. “Ramiﬁcations of medical science are evident in the
live burial motifs that some readers think are so dear to Poe, not knowing that fear of live
burial was not a product of literary Gothicism”.130 From the relationship between the two male
characters results a “murder”. From my point of view both of them are murderers, they bury
Madeline alive, the young woman is presented to be ‘dead’ and she must be entombed. I also
think that Roderick had a plan when he decided to entomb her, maybe he made her asleep with
a narcotic substance, to be sure she would not woke up during the entombment. After the
event, Madeline was entombed, the two male characters had some worries, although Madeline
was entombed for some days, the male characters felt that something was wrong, the narrator
129
Scott Peeples, The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe (Camden House, 2004), xi preface.
130
36
saw how Roderick’s behavior was more and more instable, therefore the normal reaction for
someone who know that he is guilty and afraid of the consequences of his actions.
The fear of the character is the consequence for his actions, when the storm begins, the
sensational of Roderick’s fear and madness are moments full of horror and terror, the sounds
and storm predict the drama, even I felt a sensation of fear during the reading, but my curiosity
was stronger than the fear, such thing as fear couldn’t stop me to find out the ending.
The representation of this episode is the mental collapse of Roderick, his agitation is
continuous, a strong fear is in the entire body, even the narrator’s role is to keep him calm by
reading him from “The Mad Trist”, Roderick’s situation is the same. The reason why Roderick
was so scared is because he knew that Madeline will come back. He knew that she is not dead
and because he entombed her, she will come after him.
The sounds and the storm was the first reason of his fear, the questions addressed to the
narrator about the sounds and if he had heard it too, symbolize the answer of his madness, if
the narrator had heard everything that Roderick heard, it means that Roderick is not mad and
the events are real, and not only in the mind of Roderick. After the narrator confirms to
Roderick that all the events he had heard are real, the presence of Madeline is the confirmation
to all the question.
The image of Madeline is shocking, Roderick is frozen by fear, and the image of Madeline is
presented with blood on ‘her white robes’. It is not mentioned who’s blood is, but the
association of white robes and blood is enough for me to believe that it was her blood. The
idea of Madeline coming back as a vampire figure could have sense, because the return of her
after the entombment is a fact that requires supernatural powers and the force to pass through
the iron door and to be able to unlock the coffin can be made only with supernatural power.
Her return symbolize the conviction of Roderick to death. After Roderick sees her, the final
yells of Madeline predicts her final moment of life, she collapses over her brother and both
die. The fall of Madeline over Roderick is the moment when the fear of Roderick is so strong
that he dies. Madeline’s return is for the narrator the episode when he lose his childhood
friend. After the death of both, the narrator is the only survivor of the tale, the final image
what the narrator sees is the disintegration of the house, the fall. The death of the Ushers, in
37
my point of view symbolize the death of the house, everything collapses, brother and sister as
human beings and the house itself. Everything collapses and the name of the Ushers is gone,
the tale ends with ‘tumultuous shouting sound’, this sounds are the “fragments of the House of
Usher”. If we follow the title of the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” represents is the
end of it, the house and the characters were built, only to fall at the end.
In conclusion, the short that I chose opened my eyes towards the fact that people are not what
they seem to be. I saw this through the narrator because he seems strong at the beginning of
the story, but, as a reader, I see that he is changing his mindset and it becomes like Roderick’s,
weak.
38
Annex
Scott Peeples, The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe, (Camden House, 2004), 181.
39
Bibliography:
1. Benjamin F. Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe, Cambridge

University Press, 2008
2. Edgar Allan Poe, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Henry Frowde, London, Edinburgh,
Glasgow, New York and Toronto, 1996
3. Harold Bloom, Edgar Allan Poe- Bloom’s Classic Critical views, Bloom’s Classic
Critical Views, Volume editor Robert T. Tally, Jr.,2008
4. Harold Bloom, The Tales of Poe, Chelsea House Publishers, 1987
5. James V. Werner, American Flaneur- The Cosmic Physiognomy of Edgar Allan Poe,
published in 2004 by Routledge
6. Kevin J. Hayes, The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Cambridge University
Press, 2004
7. Scott Peeples, The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe, Camden House, 2004
Online resources:
1. Study.com/academy/lesson/hypochondriasis-disorder-treatment-symtoms-definition-
causes.html
2. http://www.brittanica.com/science/ilness/-anxiety-disorder
3. http://www.brittanica.com/science/mental-disorder#ref406398
4. www.improveeyessighthq.com/light-sensitivity.html
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Edgar Poe Fall of House of Usher

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Universitatea Babeș-Bolyai Cluj-Napoca

Edgar Allan Poe and “The Fall of the House of

Edgar Allan Poe și „Prăbușirea casei lui Usher”

Îndrumător științific Absolvent

1.Poe and his “constructiveness”……………………………..5

1.1 Edgar Allan Poe as a controversial author 5

2. Roderick Usher’s analysis…………………………17

2.1 Physical analysis 17

2.2 Psychological analysis of Roderick Usher 21

3. Relationships and fears……………………………………25

3.1 Roderick Usher’s relationships 25

3.2 Fear and death 30

Poe also continue to employ trappings and themes of antecedent Gothicism-

Graham for instance, published another sympathetic article in his magazine in

Duyckinck had asserted that Poe’s machine-like intellectualism would make

According to Scott Peeples:

As indices of those changes, we see in the eighteenth century the appearance

An interest in twins was by no means unique to Poe, who, we might say,

Benjamin Fisher suggests that:

Even more successful, perhaps as the portrayal of a disintegrating mind, “The

The attention of Poe for feminine character is special, he used in “The

The narrator details Roderick physic:

A cadaverousness of complexion, an eye large liquid, and a luminous beyond

Poe’s protagonist exhibit a morbid preoccupation with various forms of

Illness anxiety disorder, formally called hypochondriasis or hypochondria,

In psychogenic pain the main feature is a persistent complaint of pain in the

he admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar

I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect-in terror.

Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet

The event emphasis the emotional impact of the characters:

1. Benjamin F. Fisher, The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe, Cambridge

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