The Fall Of The House Of Usher Essay

The Fall of the House of Usher by Roderick Usher is a horror novel that engages and thrills the reader throughout the whole story. The story is told through a narrator. Poe however did not use the typical faceless, nameless narrator that readers are accustomed too. In a magnificent way of writing Poe made his narrator into a critical character of the story.
To understand how Poe accomplished making the narrator an actual character of the story a bystander must understand what happened in the book. The story begins with an unnamed narrator traveling to his friends house. He has not seen his friend since they where children, but he had unexpectedly received a letter from his friend Roderick asking for help. Roderick had fallen sick, burdened

by a disease of the mind and for some strange reason unbeknown to the reader or the narrator called on him, a friend he had not seen or talked to in ages for help. As the narrator arrives at the House of Usher, a mansion owned by Roderick the story begins to get spooky. The mansion itself is depicted as if it is something straight out of a horror movie. The narrator even states himself that the house fills him with melancholy as he is outside observing. While observing the house the narrator gives a little more detail on Roderick by mentioning he has a sister and that they are the only remaining members of the Usher bloodline. After that he finally heads inside the mansion.
In the mansion the narrator finally sees his boyhood friend Roderick.

Roderick true to his word appears very sick. He is suffering specifically from an “acuteness of senses”, and he thinks it is going to kill him. Roderick partially blames part of his illness on his sister having catalepsy which he thinks will soon result in her death. He also thinks that his eerie mansion has a power over him, he has not left the mansion in years and even though he is worried does not plan on leaving. The narrator seeing his friend in need tried to take Roderick’s mind off of all the negative things happening in his life but it was to no avail. Just like Roderick feared Madeline soon dies or at least she seemed to have died. Either way Roderick fazed by the death proceeds to beg the narrator help him bury his sister underneath theHouse of Usher. The narrator agreed and helped bury her in one of the many vaults that were underneath the House of Usher. A few days later on a dark rainy stormy night, the narrator and Usher are wide awake even late into the night. They can not seem to fall asleep so they decided they where going to pass the time by reading books to each other. Of all books the narrator and Usher decide on reading a scary fictional story. While reading the story aloud, any sound that the narrator read from the story was heard coming from below the vaults below the mansion. After hearing the noises continue for a little while Usher starts to freak out. He begins jumping up

and down and all of a sudden he begins to yell confessing that they actually buried Madeline alive and now she is coming back. As Usher is confessing the truth the door suddenly blows open and lo and behold a bloody, gruesome Madeline was standing at the door. She pounces on her brother who then falls down and painfully dies along with his sister. The narrator in horror and disbelief because of what he just witnessed does what any regular human being would have done and runs out of the mansion. When he gets outside he turns around and sees that the House of Usher split in two, then sink into the ground. On that note the story ends.
Even just throughout a summary of the story it is evident how Edgar Allen Poe gave the narrator characteristic traits. Unlike normal narrators this narrator was actually in the story, his actions could and did affect the course of events in the story. A great example is that he helped Roderick bury his sister. If the narrator had not done that, Roderick might not have died as soon as he did. Another example of the narrator directly affecting the story would be when he choose not go to sleep and to instead read outlaid a book with Roderick. If both men had slept and never read the book there is a possibility that Madeline might not have come out of the vaults and killed Roderick at the moment she does. By giving the narrator the ability to be able to affect the story with his actions Poe transformed the narrator into an actual “character” because that is what characters in stories do. However by making the character an actual person who is involved in the story