Nov 12, 2009

The Fall of the House of Usher | Critical Discussion

The plot of the story revolves around the extraordinary relationship between Roderick and his twin sister. When the spectral figure of Madeline first appears, we cannot determine whether she is an actual living person or some form of hallucinated effigy. Although Madeline's status as a full-fledged human being remains ambiguous even at the work's conclusion, what is apparent is that she shares some type of psychic affinity with her brother, one that transcends the normal relationship between siblings. Some critical readers of the tale maintain that the physical resemblance between...