The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

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The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

The mind is a complicated thing. Not many stories are able to portray this in such an interesting manner as in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher". The haunting story of a man and his sister, living in the old family mansion. But as all should know, much symbolism can be found in most of Poe's works. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is no exception.

First of all, we have the symbolisme of Roderick Ushers mind and the House of Usher coinciding. Both can be seem as one and the same.

Residing in the house are both Roderick and his sister, Madeline. What can be translated from this is the age old hypothesis, the mind is divided in two parts: a male or rational part, and a female or emotionnal part. In Usher's mind, we can see that he has problems expressing his emotions, represented as Madeline's unknown sickness.

When she finally dies, Roderick puts her away in an old dungeon t'ill she is to be buried. One could say that Usher is trying to forget about his emotions by throwing that part of his mind into the basement, or subconcious. He knows that if he can survive a fortnight without this emotional part in him, he'll be able to live without it for the rest of his days.

Another symbol is the one of the fortnight. A fortnight is 14 days, or half a moon cycle. The full moon can be seen as another symbol for the unconcious mind or even the dark side in us all. Whereas a new moon represents the concious or good side in us all.

Madeline was locked away just at the beginning of the full moons half cycle. In other words, Roderick knew that this was the worst time for his sister to die, she could easily comeback, using the moons dark power.

Unf...

... middle of paper ...

...In her death-throes, she lands on her brother, causing him to die of fright. The narrator escapes only to see the entire

house collapse behind him as its lone inhabitants die. (Bloom 19)

Throughout the story, Poe's imagery of the house and the inanimate objects inside serve to give a supernatural atmosphere to the story. By giving inanimate objects almost life-like characteristics, he is also giving the house a supernatural quality. The whole story centers around Poe's portrait of an insane man. He goes to great lengths to describe every detail of Roderick Usher's mental illness. Poe's description of Usher's face is very similar to his own features. This knowledge turns "The Fall of the House of Usher": a tale of the introverted, artistic soul tormented and unable to function in the ordinary world, into a brief glance into Poe's own struggles as a writer.

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