Plot analysis

“The Fall of the House of Usher” follows a traditional story arc with conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. The opening scene of the narrator riding up to an old and ominous house foreshadows the darkness to come. The main conflict that drives the story is the narrator’s coming to help Roderick recover from an illness. Action rises with Madeline's apparent death and Roderick's descent into madness over his fears about the house being sentient. The raging storm, Madeline’s rising from the dead, and her subsequent collapse onto Roderick, which kills them both, acts as the climax. Action falls when the narrator flees the house and watches it sink into the tarn. Because Poe intentionally leaves the story without a lesson, the only resolution is the sight of the tarn and the realization that neither the family nor the house will ever be seen again.

Point of view

Poe tells the story through a first-person narrator who recounts the events as he remembers them. Thus the point of view is important to analyze when studying “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The fallibility of the narrator’s memory and his lack of confidence in the supernatural things he sees cast the events of the story into question. Readers cannot be certain of what is true and what is skewed by time and imagination. The narrator employs his ability to reason, explaining potentially supernatural events with logic, but as the story goes on, terror floods his analytical mind. The corruption of the rational narrator creates more uncertainty around whether or not the events are supernatural or merely products of the narrator’s isolation and madness. The unreliable narrator destabilizes the story. The lack of a definitive answer as to what happened leaves readers to decide if the story’s events are the result of madness or supernatural forces—or both.

Setting

Poe does not specify the story’s location or time period. This makes it possible for the story to take place in a variety of settings. This lack of specificity makes the story engaging, because it allows readers to fill in details for themselves and insert themselves into the narrator’s story telling. However, Poe does carefully control the mood by setting the story in a desolate countryside in autumn. The story takes place entirely in and around a gloomy mansion, adding to the feeling of isolation and sense of entrapment.

Symbolism

After arriving at the House of Usher, the narrator makes a direct comparison between the house and the family itself. The mansion acts as a symbol of the once great Usher family that has fallen to ruin. The house is isolated and cut off from the outside world just like the Usher siblings. As the house decays, so do the Ushers and their mental state. The decrepit interior reflects the state of mind of both Roderick and Madeline as isolation eats away at their sanity. The house eventually sinks into the tarn, signifying the end of the Usher line. The symbolism of the house and the family highlight the fact that all things decay.

The narrator also acts as a symbol of both rationality and a bridge to the outside world for the Usher siblings. The narrator thinks critically about fear and its causes from the first time he sees the house. He attempts to determine what specifically about the house makes him uneasy and recognizes that he what he fears could be the result of his imagination. However, the longer the narrator stays in the house, the more fear overcomes him, showing that fear and imagination often overcome rationality. Although doctors come and go to monitor Roderick’s and Madeline’s health, the narrator is their main connection to the outside world. Roderick’s letter asking the narrator to come cheer him up demonstrates that the doctors’ presence does not ease his isolation. Since the narrator is a symbol of rationality, he also then represents Roderick’s connection to sanity. The speaker’s final flight from the house shows the Ushers’ complete departure from reality. Their last tie to the rest of the world is broken.

Historical context

The story can be read as a reaction to transcendentalism and Romanticism, two of the prevailing philosophical movements of the 18th and 19th centuries. Transcendentalism claims that divinity is present in all nature and humanity and that a person can transcend the material world through the study of nature. In contrast, Poe portrays nature as malevolent, humanity as mad, and the supernatural as evil. While transcendentalism praises nature and its essential goodness, Poe depicts nature as harmful. All that is natural in the story—the trees, fungi, tarn, and even atmosphere—is infectious and corruptive to the mind. Roderick’s connections to the material world mirror his connection to sanity. When he grows more insane, he stops his hobbies of painting, reading, and writing music. In the story, a link to the material world is a good thing, and it is not something one would want to transcend.

The Romantics celebrated beauty, often in nature, and sometimes idealized life. Poe’s stories often turn beautiful scenes into something grotesque. Autumn twilight is ominous instead of colorful and bountiful. An old house and the trappings of a rich family are in disrepair, left tattered and crumbling. Even the old romance story that the narrator reads to Roderick in order to calm him down portents Madeline’s dreadful reemergence from the vault. Decay and darkness complicate or destroy any conventional beauty, such as Roderick’s paintings or the grounds of the estate. Readers searching for beauty can only find a macabre beauty in the gothic descriptions and vividly intricate scenes Poe describes.

Poe’s story also reflects the fears of the time. Fear of premature burial was common in the 19th century for legitimate reasons: people were sometimes declared dead while still alive and then buried. The story of Madeline Usher dramatizes this fear. Despite the doctors around her all throughout her illness, she is prematurely buried. Roderick buries Madeline within the house and can hear her attempts to get out but does nothing, because he doesn’t understand that she is alive and trying to escape the vault. When she does manage to escape the vault, she only lives long enough to collapse, dead, on Roderick and thereby kill him as well.

Settings in literature have the power to transport readers, stirring emotion and sparking imagination. Edgar Allan Poe, renowned for his mastery of the gothic genre, uses setting not just as a backdrop but as a vital character in his stories. Through the gloomy and mysterious environments he crafts, particularly in "The Fall of the House of Usher," Poe establishes atmospheres that are richly eerie and hauntingly memorable.

The Gothic Landscape

Poe's works, especially "The Fall of the House of Usher," are enveloped in ambiguous settings that heighten their gothic intensity. The narrator's journey through a "singularly dreary tract of country" to the Usher house is a passage into a realm suspended beyond specific time or place, cultivating an aura that is both isolating and unsettling. The scenery is imbued with elements of the European gothic tradition—armor, dungeons, and decaying mansions—that evoke a sense of historical detachment and timeless dread.

The House of Usher

The House of Usher itself is a microcosm of decay and madness, its very architecture a reflection of the Usher family's decline. With "vacant eye-like windows" and walls on the verge of crumbling, the house exudes an ancient, eerie presence. It stands tenuously connected to the land by a narrow causeway, hinting at its fragile grasp on reality. The "black and lurid tarn," a stagnant pool surrounding the house, emits pestilent vapors that poison the atmosphere, further enhancing the house's spectral quality.

Interiors of Dread

Inside, the house's interiors contribute to its oppressive aura. The hallway, accessed through a Gothic archway, is decked with black floors and somber tapestries, creating a somber, claustrophobic environment. Roderick Usher's studio, with its high narrow windows and chaotic clutter, allows little light, enveloping the room in gloom. This space, filled with books, musical instruments, and unsettling paintings, reflects Roderick's disturbed psyche.

Subterranean Mysteries

Below the mansion, the vaults embody the ultimate convergence of gothic themes—death, mystery, and the supernatural. These chambers, housing the remains of Roderick's ancestors, are damp, cramped, and lightless. It is in one such vault that Madeline Usher is interred, her premature burial echoing the dark recesses of the human mind. After her entombment, the house becomes even noisier, with knocks, creaks, and rumbles that intensify Roderick's madness.

"The frequent use of the castles and mansions that are the centerpieces of most gothic novels to model the troubled minds of their owners was not always as deliberate, but Edgar Allan Poe understood exactly what was going on when such edifices were afflicted by supernatural visitations and battered by storms."

The Unnatural Storm

The climax of "The Fall of the House of Usher" is underscored by a violent and unnatural storm, originating from within the house. The luminous exhalations of the tarn light the vaporous clouds hanging ominously above, setting the stage for the house's dramatic demise. As the narrator flees, the clouds part to reveal a blood-red moon, casting a foreboding glow on the scene. It is in this moment that the narrow crack, previously observed as zigzagging from the roof to the foundations, widens and tears the house apart, causing it to collapse into the tarn.

Poe's exquisite attention to the interplay between setting and narrative effectively blurs the line between the psychological and the supernatural. Through meticulously detailed environments that mirror the internal turmoil of his characters, he creates settings that are as integral to his gothic tales as the characters themselves. In doing so, Poe crafts not merely stories of intrigue and dread, but immersive experiences that linger long after the final page is turned.

"The Fall of the House of Usher" was first published in 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. At a time when most popular literature was overtly moralistic, Poe's stories focused solely on creating emotional impacts. Poe criticized his contemporaries for being "didactic," meaning they were more interested in making religious or political statements through their writing, often at the expense of the fiction itself. His own tales of terror, which frequently portrayed the psychological breakdown of unstable or emotionally intense characters, starkly contrasted with the works of the more acclaimed writers of his era. Due to his aversion to didactic writing, Poe received little recognition from the literary establishment of his time.

Despite being dismissed by literary critics, Poe's stories played a crucial role in legitimizing the short story as a significant literary form. Before his influence, short works were not considered serious literature. Poe's examples of what short stories could achieve, along with his own nonfiction writings on the subject, were key in establishing the short story as a legitimate form of serious literature. Moreover, Poe had a profound impact on popular fiction. His tales of terror are regarded as some of the finest in the horror genre. Additionally, he pioneered—some argue invented—the genre of detective fiction with his story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

During Poe's era, a distinct and mature American literature was beginning to take shape with contributions from authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Greenleaf Whittier, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Fenimore Cooper. Prior to this period, American readers considered British literature the only serious literary work available, and American writers often imitated British models. However, with the emergence of a new group of American writers who focused on uniquely American themes, settings, and characters, a distinctly American literature began to form. Poe was among the American writers who contributed significantly to the development of this national literature.

In "The Fall of the House of Usher," Edgar Allan Poe deftly employs an array of literary techniques that create a chilling narrative, rich in atmosphere, foreshadowing, and symbolism. The story's tone is unmistakably one of doom and despair, encapsulated by the myriad details Poe selects to evoke the terror of madness, premature burial, and ultimate destruction. Central to this atmosphere is the depiction of the Usher house itself, a gloomy edifice marred by a fissure that runs from its roof to the "sullen waters of the tarn," embodying the ominous mood that permeates the tale.

The intensity of the narrative is further amplified by the violent storm that rages on a night "singular in its terror and beauty." As thunder crashes and lightning splits the sky, the wind howls hauntingly, setting the stage for Madeline Usher's spectral emergence from her tomb. Roderick and Madeline's deaths are poignantly underscored by the sight of the "blood-red moon" casting its ghastly glow through the very fissure that symbolizes the house's—and the family's—impending collapse.

Poe's mastery of foreshadowing is evident in his portrayal of the Usher house on the brink of ruin, mirroring the decline of its inhabitants. The details of the decaying exterior presage the eerie atmosphere inside, where both Roderick and Madeline Usher reside. Roderick's painting of a vault foreshadows Madeline’s eventual entombment, while the narrator's reading of Sir Lancelot Canning's "Mad Twist" eerily parallels Madeline's return from her grave.

Symbolism in the story enriches its plot and themes, with the Usher house standing as the most potent symbol. Once vibrant, it now starkly contrasts with its illustrious past, a theme echoed in "The Haunted Palace." The house's windows, fungi-ridden walls, and the ominous fissure reflect Roderick's deteriorating mental and physical state. Madeline's barren womb serves as an extension of the house and lineage, symbolizing the impending extinction of the Usher bloodline. Her death leaves Roderick as the last of his line, and his demise marks the literal and metaphorical fall of the House of Usher.

1830s: It was a common belief that odors from sources like the tarn near the Usher house could lead to mental illnesses similar to what Roderick Usher experienced. Effective treatments for mental illness were scarce or nonexistent.

Today: With a better understanding of mental illness's physiological causes and a range of medical treatments, the care for mentally ill individuals has greatly improved.

1830s: The deceased were typically kept at home for several days before burial. Funeral homes were uncommon, so families handled the preparation and burial of their loved ones.

Today: Most people pass away in hospitals, and wakes are usually held in churches or funeral homes.

1830s: Travel was challenging, slow, and often perilous. Railroads were just beginning, and most long-distance journeys were by horse-drawn wagons. It was common for guests to stay for several weeks or even an entire season when visiting relatives or friends.

Today: Enhanced transportation options, including railroads, airplanes, and automobiles, have made long-distance travel more accessible. Additionally, advanced communication technologies like telephones and e-mail have made extended visits with family and friends less common.

• The Fall of the House of Usher (1952): Directed and produced by Ivan Barnett, this black-and-white, 70-minute film stars Kay Tendeter as Roderick Usher and Gwen Watford as Madeline Usher, available from Vigilant distributors. Generally considered a poor adaptation of Poe's story.
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1960): Directed by Mark Corman, this color film runs 65 minutes and stars Vincent Price, Myrna Fahey, and Mark Damon. Considered one of the best film adaptations of the story.
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1980): Directed by James L. Conway and produced by Charles E. Sellier, Jr., this 101-minute color film stars Martin Landau as Roderick Usher and Dimitra Arliss as Madeline Usher, available from Sunn Classic.
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1965): A 29-minute black-and-white dramatization taped as part of the "American Story Classics" series, available from Film Video Library.
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1976): A dramatization taped by Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation. Also in 1976, The Fall of the House of Usher: A Discussion features science fiction writer Ray Bradbury discussing the Gothic traditions and Poe's influence on contemporary science fiction.

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