My favourite story:'The Fall of the House of Usher.' by Edgar Allan Poe

 My favourite story:'The Fall of the House of Usher.' by Edgar Allan Poe

The Fall of the House of Usher has been reflected in black and white in the form of the Gothic style which is perceptible from the launch of this anecdote, the withstand and ambiance mirror the narrator’s depressing mood as if the corporal world is associated to him or one way or another conscious of his existence. This is typical of Gothic literature. The bleak horror of this scene is bound to correspond to greater horrors within. As Edgar Allan Poe has contemplated in the story, "The Fall of the House of Usher", he revitalizes categorization, and imagery to illustrate fear, terror, and shadows on the human intelligence. 

Roderick and his twin sister Madeline are the last of the all time-honored House of Usher. They are both suffering from rather strange illnesses which may be attributed to the intermarriage of the family. Roderick suffers from "a morbid acuteness of the senses", while Madeline's illness is characterized by " a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent all though transient affections of a partly cataleptic ally character" which caused her to lose consciousness and as they are reading literature in the study, there is a loud knock at the door and at that moment the climax is Madeline at the door embodied in blood from scratching her way out of the coffin.

The narrator at that moment realizes they buried her alive and looks to Roderick for answers and he is sitting in complete terror so much that he could not look at Madeline, as he realizes that death has come for him. Madeline proceeds to walk towards Roderick and fall on him, the reader you assume that she begins to eat him but the narrator flees in fear of death. "A gust of wind blew the doors, and there did stand the enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline...There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold, then with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon…her brother, and in her violent and now final death agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse…". Suddenly the wrath of the storm increased, and the mansion began to shake and crumble. The friend frantically fled from the chamber and from out of that mansion. Only once did he turn to glance back, when his attention was arrested by a wild light…"The radiance was that of the full setting...blood red moon, which now show vividly through that once barely discernible. Usher” describes looking down into the water and feeling his superstition about the house increase within him. He explains that feelings of terror often increase the more one becomes conscious of them. He thinks it might be this phenomenon that causes the scene to appear even ghastlier and stranger when he lifts his eyes to it again. He tries to shake off the feeling and examine the house properly.The narrator tries to reason out his sensations. But though it can be comforting to attribute a strange phenomenon to a trick of the mind, here, it adds another psychological element of horror to the tale, and ultimately suggests that the mind can't in fact be trusted. The narrator of "House of Usher" notices the extreme age of the property, but that some parts are crumbling and others are fine. The overall structure seems to be holding up against its age though, apart from a single crack going from top to bottom of the facade. The narrator travels on to the house and is greeted by a servant who takes him to Usher’s studio.Poe uses architecture to portray mystery. The degradation of the house, its fraying surfaces, represent the corresponding suffering of its inhabitants, just as the instability of the building's interior and foundations suggests the Usher's psychological frailty. On the way, the narrator of "House of Usher" passes many striking objects and images on tapestries and carvings, and he feels again that haunting sensation. Then he meets the family’s physician, who has a half cunning, half confused expression. He is led into a huge room, whose windows were so high that they could not be reached. The narrator struggles to see everything inside the room because of the light, but sees that it is generally filled with tattered furniture and books and musical instruments. The room fills him with gloom.Each vision that the narrator passes on the way to see Usher creates a recurring sensation of dread. The images on the walls, the warped height of the room, the objects from the past make a list in the narrative and create the feeling that the narrator has stepped into another world. The familiar is distorted in this house – and the menace of the doctor, a traditionally kind figure, makes the narrator vulnerable.Active Themes Usher rises and greets his old friend eagerly, which the narrator of "House of Usher" can tell is very sincere, but he can see that the man is completely changed, has become very pale and thin and his eyes have a strange luster. Usher's features are so fearful that the narrator doesn’t even recognize him. He also finds his friend’s manner worrying. Usher seems to be acting to cover up his extreme nervousness, though the narrator had expected as much based on Usher's letter and what he remembers of Usher's temperament.A change has come over the narrator’s old friend that goes beyond what he has heard about a “nervous disorder”. Usher’s eyes (remember that Poe uses eyes as a symbol of the soul and the menace of the supernatural) are very noticeable. Lustre is an interesting quality, both shining and unclear, it veils Usher’s true expression. But Usher’s condition is severe, at times incomprehensible, one minute full of energy, the other depressed. In this mania, he tells the narrator of "House of Usher" about his illness. He says it is a family complaint. He describes his symptoms as unnatural sensations, like aversions to light and food and a general feeling of terror. He thinks that this terror will kill him. It is not that he fears danger, but the condition of fear itself.The House of Usher and the Usher family are attached by name. The concept of the family lineage and the building is one and the same, but this connection goes further than the narrator first suspects and seems to have taken over Usher’s mind.Usher also suffers from a superstitious nature, especially related to the House of Usher – he feels that he cannot leave the building, and that the dilapidation and ugliness of its features has somehow affected his own condition, the physical rotting of the structure corresponding to his own rotting spirit.A symptom of the characters’ psychological disorder, in fact the main symptom, is their dependency on each other and to the house itself.

As the building appears to rot and age, so do the characters.But Usher also explains that his symptoms can be attributed to a more comprehensible cause, the long term illness of his beloved sister, his only remaining relative and companion. He talks about her with unbearable dread, and just at that moment, the lady Madeleine passes through the room, and the narrator is filled with a similar sensation of horror. As soon as the lady has gone, the narrator looks to her brother and sees him weeping. Though Usher explains his condition as largely caused by a kind of extreme sympathy and sadness for his sister, there is something more disturbing at work in the disconnectedness of these two conditions. As Madeleine enters the room, her presence has a physical effect on him.In view of the above it is evident that at the outset the terror has been figured out and at the same stimulation and retribution has been vividly contemplated.

The lady’s disease is impenetrable. She seems to be slowly but surely homicide away. She had been able to walk around but on this day, she finally takes to her bed and the narrator of "House of Usher" knows he will probably never see her again. Over the ensuing days the narrator tries to cheer Usher up. But as they get closer and the narrator knows him more intimately, he realizes how useless these attempts are. Usher’s spirit is beyond help.