The Symbolism In The House Of Usher

The House of Usher can be used to symbolically represent a person. The House of Usher has many human-like physical features, such as “the vacant eye-like windows,”(69). Another important part is that the house was “once a fair and stately place,”(79). In the beginning of the short story, the House of Usher is described as a dismal one, in general simply falling apart. The House’s physical form withers with age as do human bodies.
The House of Usher can also be used as a symbol for the Usher family line. In the short story, the narrator describes the House of Usher as decaying notably with “crumbling conditions of the individual stones,” (72). These individual stones may represent the individual family members, and as their life fades, so

does the structural integrity of the stone. As soon as the final members of the Usher family line perished, the House had no more intact stones and therefore crumbled.
In The Cask of Amontillado, the tube of amontillado symbolizes death. In the story, the narrator is leading Fortunato to the tube of amontillado that he bought at a carnival. As he is leading Fortunato through the vaults to the amontillado, he is also leading him to his demise. As the narrator speaks with Fortunato, he keeps a smile on his face, but his “smile now was at the thought of his immolation.”(¶1). Fortunato was a lover of wine, and the narrator used that to his advantage by using the amontillado to lure him into the vaults to murder him.
The arms of the Montresor family symbolizes the murder of Fortunato. The Montresor family’s arms depicts a foot that “crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are embedded in the heel.”(¶47). In that sense, the serpent is represented by Fortunato, who insulted the Montresor name. The foot would be Montresor’s, as he is the one who led Fortunato to his grim reaper.
One theme that is visible through both Poe stories is seeking revenge for other’s wrongdoings. For example, in The Cask of Amontillado, Fortunato insulted Montresor’s family, and Montresor states “when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”(¶1). And in the other story, The Fall of the House of Usher, the narrator’s friend Usher believes he buried his sister Madeline prematurely, and soon after, Madeline appears in the doorway, falls onto her brother, and “bore him to the floor a corpse.”(90). These examples show a mutual theme of seeking revenge for wrongdoings, and both end with the death of the one who committed the wrongdoing.