Nov 15, 2009

The Fall of the House of Usher | Introduction

"The Fall of the House of Usher,'' written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1839, is regarded as an early and supreme example of the Gothic horror story, though Poe ascribed the term "arabesque'' to this and other similar works, a term that he felt best described its flowery, ornate prose. Featuring supernatural theatrics, which critics have interpreted a number of ways, the story exhibits Poe's concept of "art for art's sake," the idea that a story should be devoid of social, political, or moral teaching. In place of a moral, Poe creates a mood—terror, in this case— through his use of language. This philosophy of "art for art's sake" later evolved into the literary movement of Aestheticism which eschewed the symbolic and preachy literature of the day—especially in England—in an attempt to overcome strict Victorian conventions. Because of his emphasis on style and language, Poe proclaimed his writing a reaction to typical literature of the day, which he called "the heresy of the Didactic'' for its tendency to preach. Condemned by some critics for its tendencies toward Romanticism a literary movement marked by melodramatic and maudlin exaggerations, "The Fall of the House of Usher" was nevertheless typical of Poe's short stories in that it presents a narrator thrust into a psychologically intense situation in which otherworldly forces conspire to drive at least one of the characters insane.

The Fall of the House of Usher Summary

First published in the September, 1839 edition of Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is widely acknowledged to be one of Poe's finest and most representative tales. The story begins with the first-person narrator riding on horseback toward the ancestral home of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher. In the opening paragraph, the narrator establishes an overwhelming atmosphere of dread. As he approaches his destination on a "dull, dark, and soundless" day, he notes that the clouds were hanging "oppressively low" in the sky over the "singularly dreary tract" where the "melancholy" House of Usher stood. The sight of the landscape filled him with an "insufferable gloom," while his initial view of the House of Usher itself evoked an "utter depression" in the narrator's soul. Although he was unable to grasp precisely why he is so unnerved by the house, the narrator makes a prominent reference to its "eye-like windows."

A dark mood now hanging over his story, the narrator tells us that he has been summoned through a "wildly importunate" letter from Roderick, in which the writer stated that he had become the victim of an "acute bodily illness---of a mental disorder which oppressed him." Roderick wrote that the narrator was his only personal friend, and pleaded with him to stay for a time at the House of Usher. The narrator now gives us some background about Roderick and the Usher family. He first admits that he actually knows very little about Roderick, who was shy and reserved as a boy even with his most "intimate" friend. He had not seen Roderick for many years, but recounts that the Usher family was an ancient one, distinguished by its artistic temperament and its many acts of charity. But he then implies that the Usher race is the product of inbreeding, intimating that close intermarriage, if not outright incest, had created a congenital deficiency that may have some part in Roderick's illness. In light of these recollections, the narrator scanned the landscape around him again; he experienced even greater anxiety and gloom.

The narrator reached the house itself and was taken by a servant into Roderick's large and lofty studio. Roderick's apartment was filled with antique furniture, books and musical instruments, but entirely devoid of vitality. The narrator says, "I felt that I had breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all." He was greeted cordially by Roderick, but he was taken aback by the change in his friend's appearance. Although he could still recognize the features of his former schoolmate, he was struck by the "ghastly pallor" of Roderick's skin and by the "miraculous lustre" in his eyes. His host's manner was equally disconcerting: Roderick's mood swung wildly between animated enthusiasm and sullen depression.

Roderick explained to the narrator that he is in the grips of a "constitutional and family evil," one of its symptom being an acute intensification of the senses. Usher then expressed his belief that the house itself was exerting a perverse influence over his spirit. Yet he also admitted that his depression might be related to the severe, prolonged illness that had taken hold of his twin sister, Madeline. As he spoke, the spectral figure of Madeline passed through the studio. She moved silently, without taking notice of her brother or the narrator, and then vanished. Roderick said that disease from which his sister suffers has baffled her doctors. He was now convinced, however, that Madeline will soon die and that this was the last time that they would see her alive.

During the next several days, the narrator and Roderick painted and read together. Roderick's paintings were so abstract that the narrator is unable to describe them. Roderick played on a guitar (his hearing had grown so sensitive that he could only tolerate the sound of stringed instruments). Poe now introduces the lyrics that accompanied one of the "rhapsodies" that Roderick played on the guitar in the form of a poem entitled "The Haunted Palace." The first four of the poem's six stanzas portray a radiant mythical palace in a green valley governed by pure Thought and inhabited by spirits who moved musically about in perfect harmony. But in the fifth stanza, "Evil things" assail Thought with sorrow, the movements of the spirits inside the palace become frenzied, and a "hideous throng" rushes out of it toward an inferred doom. Roderick used the poem to put forth his theory that... » Complete The Fall of the House of Usher Summary