The Fall Of The House Of Usher Analysis Part 2

The Fall House of Usher (1839)

English Literature

Context

• Edgar Allan Poe had a stormy forty years which influenced his writing style. Often tragic circumstances that occured in his life haunted his writing. The death of his parents that he witnessed in his early years and emotionally turbulent relationships with his adoptive parents shaped his writing style. His name soon became synonymous with macabre tales. 
• He introduced British gothic/horror genre to American Literature. Poe became a key literary figure in American literature and letters.
• He received several views from critics. Although he was known to be one of the original writers in America, only the latter half of the 20th century considered him to be a crucial contributor to American Renaissance
• Gothic literature is a genre that rose with Romanticism and explores the dark side of human experiences such as death, alienation, nightmares and haunted landscapes. American Gothic Literature dramatises a culture through characters afflicted with various forms of insanity and melancholy. 
• Poe’s gothic is a potent brew, best served in small doses such as the Fall House of Usher.

Key facts

• Genre- Gothic literature/ supernatural/ short horror story. We tend to deal with the supernatural genre as bizarre happenings occur. The inexplicable diseases that the twins deal with stimulates a horror genre. 
• Narrator- In these tales of criminal insanity, the narrators are often unreliable and unnamed. He is an enigma. They claim their sanity and proceed to describe the pathological madness. They control the narrative and we only see the progression of the story from their eyes. They are absorbed in the madness and meticulously described insanity. We see that he is nameless to show that his only job is to narrate as the events unfold in the manor. One of the most peculiar aspects is that the narrator goes to lengths to convince that the weird happenings in the manor are completely futile. He renders the pathological madness and cannot be trusted as he might have lost his sanity himself. One more thing to notice is the fact that as he narrated the story out loud to Usher, it was prophetic in nature. He protests that his words cannot describe reality, however it comes true. His only purpose in the story was to introduce us to the House of Usher. 
• Diction- The narrator often uses polished, ornate, highly decorated language to exaggerate the criminal insanity. It is also to bury the tense atmosphere between the lines. It is melodramatic macabre as the diction is over the top
• Tense- They often begin with present tense narration and count back to flashbacks to recount the memories.
• Tone- The story is recited in retrospect (a study of past course of events). The frantic mania of the horrified narrator seeps into the tone of narration. Poe unfolds horrifying, supernatural events in a calm and composed manner which adds to the sense of horror in the story.
• Epigraph- The epigraph in stories usually hints to the readers on how to interpret their work. The epigraph in this story is a quote from a French song which says His/her heart (gender ambiguity) is a polished lute and as soon as it touched, it resounds. This epigraph could be hinted to be a work of Usher himself in the story. It speaks about the theme of isolation as well as Usher’s “acuteness of senses”. Loneliness is seen as his/her heart is waiting to be touched but as soon as it is, it echoes. 
• Title- The title can be literally interpreted to a foreshadowing of the ending. The Fall of the House was evident with the narrator’s arrival as he saw a small fissure which later caused the house to break into two. There is also a more symbolic meaning to this title as it hints the metaphorical fall of the twins. The siblings were the last ones of the family and when they died, the bloodline ended with them. We are reminded that we are not in a realistic world as the pieces of the story fit too well to shape a conclusion and action is too dramatic. For example- just as Roderick falls to his death, his sister falls on him and the house collapses on them as a full stop for their blood line. This adds to the fantastical nature of the story.
• Setting- The setting of the house is carefully crafted to heighten a tense atmosphere throughout the story. The sentient house, dreary landscape and mysterious sicknesses adds to the horror element of the story. The idea of “grim phantasm” is constantly played with as we abandon the idea of reason in the story. The setting forebodes something ominous. The character’s psychological decay and the deteriorating mansion adds to the effect. All the events unfold under the moonlight. Aiming to give you frisson( thrill) 
• The gothic element of the story describes the house to be of a grander kind.
• The story consists of quintessential aspects of a gothic novel such as the dreary landscape, a dark moat, an ethereal glowing cloud, ancient furnishings, creepy tapestries, small fissure, ebony blackness, inclement weather, etc.
• Although, the narrator is one of the most intimate boyhood friends of Usher, he does not know basic facts about him like he has a sister. Poe allows us to question the timing Usher decided to reconnect with his friend and the bizarre tenacity of his acceptance. The sister’s peculiar disease might also be the cause of his madness. The incestuous relationship he might have had with her might be why he buried her alive. 

Summary

An unnamed narrator approaches the “melancholy” house of Usher on a “dull, dark, and soundless day.” This house—the estate of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher—is gloomy and mysterious. The narrator observes that the house seems to have absorbed an evil and diseased atmosphere from the decaying trees and murky ponds around it. He notes that although the house is decaying in places—individual stones are disintegrating, for example—the structure itself is fairly solid. There is only a small crack from the roof to the ground in the front of the building. He has come to the house because his friend Roderick sent him a letter earnestly requesting his company. Roderick wrote that he was feeling physically and emotionally ill, so the narrator is rushing to his assistance. The narrator mentions that the Usher family, though an ancient clan, has never flourished. Only one member of the Usher family has survived from generation to generation, thereby forming a direct line of descent without any outside branches. The Usher family has become so identified with its estate that the peasantry confuses the inhabitants with their home.

The narrator finds the inside of the house just as spooky as the outside. He makes his way through the long passages to the room where Roderick is waiting. He notes that Roderick is paler and less energetic than he once was. Roderick tells the narrator that he suffers from nerves and fear and that his senses are heightened. The narrator also notes that Roderick seems afraid of his own house. Roderick’s sister, Madeline, has taken ill with a mysterious sickness—perhaps catalepsy, the loss of control of one’s limbs—that the doctors cannot reverse. The narrator spends several days trying to cheer up Roderick. He listens to Roderick play the guitar and make up words for his songs, and he reads him stories, but he cannot lift Roderick’s spirit. Soon, Roderick posits his theory that the house itself is unhealthy, just as the narrator supposes at the beginning of the story.

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. Over the next few days, Roderick becomes even more uneasy. One night, the narrator cannot sleep either. Roderick knocks on his door, apparently hysterical. He leads the narrator to the window, from which they see a bright-looking gas surrounding the house. The narrator tells Roderick that the gas is a natural phenomenon, not altogether uncommon.

The narrator decides to read to Roderick in order to pass the night away. He reads “Mad Trist” by Sir Launcelot Canning, a medieval romance. As he reads, he hears noises that correspond to the descriptions in the story. At first, he ignores these sounds as the vagaries of his imagination. Soon, however, they become more distinct and he can no longer ignore them. He also notices that Roderick has slumped over in his chair and is muttering to himself. The narrator approaches Roderick and listens to what he is saying. Roderick reveals that he has been hearing these sounds for days, and believes that they have buried Madeline alive and that she is trying to escape. He yells that she is standing behind the door. The wind blows open the door and confirms Roderick’s fears: Madeline stands in white robes bloodied from her struggle. She attacks Roderick as the life drains from her, and he dies of fear. The narrator flees the house. As he escapes, the entire house cracks along the break in the frame and crumbles to the ground.

Plot Analysis

– “The Haunted Palace”

• Poe creates the theme of entrapment in this story. The narrator, Roderick and Madeline are trapped in this story till it collapses completely. The house has a mind of its own and creates confusion with living things and inanimate objects. He also intertwines the biological fate of the bloodline to the house (internal breeding)
• Initial Situation- Narrator enters the house
• Rising action- Narrator gets to know about sickness
• Conflict- Madeline dies
• Climax- Madeline re-appears
• Falling action- Narrator fled
• Denouement- The house collapses
• Conclusion- No trace of the house seen
• As Madeline rushes to Roderick at the end, he dies of fear. This could be because Madeline is a physical embodiment of Usher’s fear. She does not appear in the end till he exclaims. His works are usually prophetic so whatever he says comes true.

Roderick Usher

• His “acuteness of senses”- physically and emotionally ill
• Does not know why he is ill till Rising action where he finds out the house affects his emotions/ Superstitious
• Close connection with sister and yet buries her alive. Did he bury Madeline because he was guilt stricken after incest? He tries to kill himself by killing his other half? Wanted to end the bloodline?
• Plausible that Usher invited the narrator to witness the horrors. Why did he call for companionship after so many years?
• His close connection with his sister might also be why she returned to him from death or to take revenge 
• Hypochondriac- abnormally anxious about his health
• Psychological decay is introduced through him
• Madeline Usher is his spiritual doppelgänger and they are one person split into two. She might be a physical manifestation of his fear which might be why the narrator rarely meets her and she does not reply to him.

Themes

1. Identity- Split personality disorder
2. Fear and inexplicable sickness
3. Family and house
4. Isolation
5. Gothic and Supernatural 
6. Entrapment

Important quotes

1. “The House of Usher- an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion”
2. ‘dull, dark and soundless day” “acuteness of senses” “first personal friend” “eye-like windows” “depression of soul” -opium addict
3. “reeked up from the decayed trees, and the grey wall and the silent tarn”
4. “A striking similitude now first arrested my attention”- “scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them”
5. “the windows were long, pointed and narrow, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within”

Symbols

1. Reality vs Art
2. The House
3. Small Fissure
4. The idea of a doppelgänger is seen in the brother and sister where they are completing each others lives. The male and female half have a role rehearsal where the brother is soft, weak and fragile whereas the female shows action, stronger than the brother, majestic and ghastly to overpower despite the catalepsy. This shows that there is a case of completing each other. There is a role reversal of masculine and feminine characters. This role rehearsal speaks of incest. 
5. He is also, it turns out, a very superstitious fellow. Usher hasn’t left his house in several years, and he’s under the impression that his family’s mansion has obtained an influence over his spirit, that it’s the house’s fault he feels so gloomy