The Fall of the House of Usher By Edgar Allan Poe

CRAVING for some spinal tingling horror story? How about some classic Edgar Allen Poe Gothic Fiction that will leave you scared and confused? The American writer from the early 19th century was famous for his mesmerizing gothic horror fiction. As he was considered the master of subterranean crypts, the living dead, haunted mansions, blood, ghosts, suffocation, personality disorder, mental illness and all the other exquisite ingredients that make up a horror story: these delineate the key elements for one of his most famous short horror fictions called, "The Fall of the House of Ushers".

The six paged short story narrates the terrible incident that happened to the last of the once well-known Usher family, which eventually perishes. The story starts with an unknown narrator riding towards the house of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, who had summoned him asking for his assistance in a letter. Since the narrator was the only close childhood companion, Mr. Usher hoped that he could help him improve his ailing health. Even though Roderick had been one of his "boon companions in boyhood," the narrator admits that "I really knew little of my friend". Roderick's condition is so horrid that the narrator's first impression of his complexion was that it appeared to be cadaverous and thought his old friend was stricken by a fate that was utterly bleak and he had almost no hope to improve or recover.

While Usher and the narrator converse, Roderick's twin sister, Lady Madeline Usher passes quickly through the distant end of the room and disappears. The sight of her fills the narrator with a sense of dread that he cannot explain. Then he is explained that she is suffering from an unspecified but fatal illness. Which physicians have been unable to identify the exact cause of her illness, but its symptoms were as a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptic character. 

The motive behind his desire to have the "solace" of the narrator's companionship, it is not the only or most significant reason. Usher himself is suffering from a "mental disorder", which is "a constitutional and . . . family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy." Even before the speaker had seen Roderick in his chamber, the narrator mentions that the ancient "stem" of the Usher family never "put forth . . . any enduring branch . . . the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always . . . so lain." In other words, Roderick and Madeline Usher are the products and inheritors of an incestuous family lineage one that has remained predominantly patrilineal, so that the name of the family always remained Usher. Which is something Roderick is strictly against.

One of Usher's paintings depicts a long subterranean tunnel with a low ceiling and white walls. Although no torches line the walls, a ghastly light radiates from the scene. All of which are meant to indicate Roderick's preoccupation with anything that might help him understand his worries. Eventually he feels certain about the house itself is evil as it was built and lived in by his forefathers, and because he believes there is "sentience [in] all vegetable things" implying that the house consists of such sentient things that has a "terrible influence" on him and Madeline.

On one unfortunate evening, after Roderick informs the narrator that Lady Madeline has passed on. He states that rather than burying his sister in the family cemetery some distance from the house, he will preserve her corpse for two weeks in one of the many vaults within the house before the final burial. As someone suffering from catalepsy may seem dead but may not be actually dead. Therefore it would be horrifying to bury Madeline alive. The other reason behind this unusual step is also to keep the corpse out of reach of her attending physicians, who are curious about the malady that killed her. It will also provide a temporary resting place for the body while burial plans are decided. 

So, the narrator assists Usher in lifting the body into the coffin and placing the coffin in the vault, situated beneath the part of the house containing the narrator's bedroom. The archway in front of the vault was covered with copper, as was the huge iron door opening into the vault. After setting the coffin in place, they moved aside the lid to look one more time upon Madeline Usher. Noticing the very strong resemblance between her and Roderick Usher, the narrator wonders whether Madeline and her brother were twins; Roderick confirms that they were and says that they shared certain feelings that others would find hard to comprehend. Before screwing down the lid of the coffin, the narrator notices that her illness left a "faint blush" on her breast and her face. Her lips were locked in "lingering smile."   As there she remains for a week, Roderick's mental illness worsened as he roamed through his house aimlessly or sits and stares vacantly at nothing for long hours.

On one tempestuously stormy night, with "mad hilarity in his eyes" Roderick enters the narrator's bedroom, where they sit together, the narrator reading to him and both of them trying to ignore the terrible grating sound they hear coming from below the bedroom which was the vault into which they placed Madeline's body, and the heavy door to that vault always makes a loud grating sound when it is being opened. As the sound continues more noticeably, Roderick suddenly informs the narrator that he has been listening to noises downstairs for many days, but apparently fearful that his sister was still living. Roderick jumps to his feet and says, "Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!" Immediately, the bedroom door swings open and Madeline in her white robes bloodied by her struggle to escape the coffin and vault is standing there. Then, giving out a low cry, she enters the room and in the throes of her final death spasms, falls upon Roderick Usher. During the fall, Usher "a victim to the terrors he had anticipated," hits the floor with "a corpse" and dies.

The narrator hastily flees the mansion and while escaping, from a short distance away he notices a blood red moon shining over the building. As he turns to look back and sees the House of Usher, it suddenly splits in two and crumbled into the dark waters of the tarn before it. The narrator in the end witnesses the dark waters of the tarn devour every last fragment of the House of Usher. 

"The Fall of the House of Usher" demonstrates perfectly Poe's principle of composition that states that everything in the story must contribute to a single unified effect. Late in the story, Roderick Usher says: "I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR." Clearly, Poe has preferred the "grim phantasm, FEAR" for his prime effect to be achieved in this story. As a result, every word, image and description in the story is chosen with the central idea in mind of creating a sense of abject terror and fear within both the narrator and the reader. From the opening paragraphs, ominous and foreboding as they are, to the presentation of the over-sensitive, hopelessly frail and delicate Roderick Usher, to the terrible conclusion with the appearance of the living corpse, all of Poe's details combine to create the anxiety creating that "grim phantasm, FEAR."

The reviewer is studying English Literature at IUB

Born as Edgar Poe on the 19th of January in 1809,  Edgar Allan Poe was an author, poet, editor and literary critic, and was considered part of the American Romantic Movement famous for his tales of mystery and macabre.

One of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and considered as the inventor of the detective fiction he also contributed to the emerging genre of science fiction as well. He has an annual award named after him, the "Edgar Award", awarded to those with distinguished works in the genre of mystery.

Poe established his own literary style of criticism through his work in literary journals and periodicals. In 1845 he published his poem, "The Raven" that became an instant success. He died at the age of 40 for reasons unknown.