The Fall of the House of Usher Poem Analysis Essay

📌Category: Edgar Allan Poe, Poems, Writers
📌Words: 1002
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 07 September 2021

While reading “The Fall of the house of Usher,” you geta few scares. This is a very different poem from the other ones you may have read by Edgar Allan Poe. Throughout this story many mysterious things happen to Roderick Usher and the narrator. This story is overall based in a gothic sense, the family is completely mad, there is a strong sense of supernatural forces, and the twins have a very strange connection.

Edgar Allan Poe is known for writing his stories that compose of complete terror and insanity. Every single time he released a story it did not repeat the same plot, but it always repeats terror, madness, supernatural forces, and so many things to grab the readers attention. For example, his story, The Black Cat, is crazy and terrifying. “I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket,” (The Black Cat) this is just one of many quotes from many different stories that you read and wonder what happened to Poe for him to write the way he does. Poe is defiantly part of the Gothic genre. All his stories have strong emotions, scary parts, and death. He truly has a knack for darker elements of humans and the supernatural.

During this story you see many reasons that the family tree of the Usher’s has all gone completely mad or are going mad. You learn that there is a long line of incest that causes most of the members of the Usher family to be what is known as, mentally insane. Madeline is an important character because she is Roderick’s sister. She deals with what is known as a seizure disorder and this can cause her to go into a coma and appear dead, because back in this time there were no technological advances in medicine that we have today.  One of the main characters, Roderick, suffers from being insane. He his sister Madeline dies or so he thinks, and this causes him to go into a downward spiral with his mental health. For every generation only one member of the usher family survives. Meaning that Madeline or he would have to die for the other one to live. “At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest.” (Ecohost) Roderick felt deeply guilty for what he did to his sister, so to try and take some of that guilt away, he buried her. It is later discovered that he buried his sister alive, and while she eventually escapes, she dies due to being starved and dehydrated. The narrator knew that she was more than likely alive when they buried her, yet the narrator still helped bury her because Roderick asked. This eventually caused the narrator to leave the house. The narrator felt not only extremely scared but was terrified that Madeline would come back and kill not only Roderick, but also the narrator.

The supernatural forces in this story are extremely undeniable. These supernatural forces are really of Roderick’s imagination. Once he starts going downhill, they seem to get worse and worse. Once these supernatural effects take ahold of his mind, he hits rock bottom. From the beginning of the story that house is described as something living. Poe describes the house as what we call depression, although the house is not actually a living being that can have emotions. “The decay of the exterior of the Usher home, which reflects Roderick's obvious physical illness, is cleverly juxtaposed against the condition of the house’s interior, which resembles Roderick's inner struggle with his own sanity as he confronts his mortality.” (Andermatt) As things continue to worsen the narrator begins to see the house become crazier. With all, the house gets it supernatural effects from the two people who feel guilty for burying the sister alive. It is all truly their imagination, and they mentally create the place that they believe they should be in. Guilt is a very strong emotion that a lot of people succumb to, and you must go through the stages of it to even remotely begin to feel normal again. For the narrator, instead of facing their guilt, the just run as far away from their problems as they can to feel same from the Ushers and the Usher house.

 The twins, Madeline, and Roderick, have a very powerful connection. Most twins in the world have a strong connection, but with almost all Ushers, these siblings were inbred. This means that they have a lot more in common than just regular twins. After his sister’s death, Roderick, is going through so many things that at one point he begins to mimic his sisters’ conditions that she suffered from. This tells you that his sister was a huge part of his life that he is not ready to let go of. Therefore, he will do many things that she did to keep her alive to himself. Roderick believes that he hears his sisters’ heart but does not say anything because he was scared that if it was true, she would kill him. “Not hear it? --yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long --long --long --many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it --yet I dared not --oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am! --I dared not --I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb!” (Poe) With his fear becoming true, Madeline, from being so sick dies and Roderick dies from seeing his sister in such a terrible state.

This story is overall based in a gothic sense, the family is completely mad, there is a strong sense of supernatural forces, and the twins have a very strange connection. The story shares many details of being terrifying, dark, displaying complete madness, and always something supernatural like other stories written by Poe. The Usher family tree has all suffered from being mentally ill because they were inbred. This messes up everything in a human because we are not designed to be normal when we have that much genetic make up of the same DNA. The supernatural forces in this story are based on the mentality of Roderick and the narrator. The twins, Madeline, and Roderick, have such a strong connection because they were inbred and share so much of the same DNA.

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