The Fall of The House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher
by Edgar Allan Poe

The Plot of the Story and Some of My Thoughts
Karen Chen
A Brief Abstract
T h e n ar r ator i s i n v i te d to th e H ou se of Ush e r b y h i s
c h i l dh ood f r i e n d R ode r i ck Us h e r, wh o liv e s with h i s siste r
i n r e cl u s e be c au s e of th e i r s i n gu lar dise ase s. Af te r h is
s i s te r M ade l i n e ’ s de ath , R od e r i c k p r e se r v e s h e r b ody in th e
f ami l y v au l t. Day s l ate r, R od e r i ck be came in san e at a d ar k ,
s tor my n i gh t, y e l l i n g th at h e h as b u r ie d h i s siste r al iv e . At
th e v e r y mome n t, M ade l i n e app e ar s at th e door, cov e r e d in
bl ood. M ad e l i n e f al l s on h e r br oth e r, die s e v e n tu ally.
R od e r i ck di e s too, i n te r r or. Th e n ar r ator fl e e s agh ast.
B e h i n d h i m th e h ou s e f al l s i n to pi e ce s by itse lf, b u r y in g
e v e r y th i n g u n d e r g r ou n d.
Timeline
On a dark, dull and soundless day in the

1 autumn,the narrator, who is invited by his
childhood friend Roderick to the House of
Usher, arrives at his destination, a
decayed but solid ancient building.
With the escort of the silent servant, the
2 narrator enters the house. Inside the
house are strange decorations,
instruments and books. Darkness and
silence seem to be in control of the
house.
To make matters worse, his
3 The owner of the house is in 4
twin sister Madeline is
no way more normal than
affl icted with a kind of
the house itself. He is
singular disease which
cadaverously pale and
baffl es all the family
unkempt, switching
physicians. Madeline moves
between vivacious and
around in the room without
sullen. He explains that the
noticing the narrator, which
condition that is passed on
makes him astonished and
in his family makes him
frightened.
what he is now.
5 6
For the next few Madeline soon

days, the narrator tries to dies and the narrator
lift Roderick’s spirits by aids Roderick to carry
reading, painting and
the coff in down into the
playing guitar. Through
vault, where she will be
these days of company the
narrator gets to know some preserved for a
of Roderick’s thoughts and fortnight. Roderick’s
feelings. He fi rmly believes disease worsens after
that all vegetable things in his sister’s death.
his house have sentience.
They are intelligible.
7 Several days later, the narrator sits up in
bed and hears some low and indefi nite sounds.
Roderick freaks out. The narrator reads a book
to him to calm him down.
But strange sounds come from the house, which

are exactly in line with the plot in the book! Roderick
8 breaks down, admitting that he buries his sister alive in
the tomb. And the sounds they hear are the sounds made
by Madeline when she tries to fi ght a way out of the
coff in and the vault. All of a sudden, the door opens by
itself, out of which stands “dead” Madeline, wrapped in
her white robes and covered in blood.
She falls on her brother and dies in
9 agony, which causes her brother’s death too.
The narrator fl ees the house aghast. Over his
head, a blood-red moon shines vividly through
a crack in the house.
10 Gradually the crack widens and the

house collapses in pieces. Then the tarn
shouts and closes over the fragments of the
house, which brings the story to its end --- the
“fall” of the House of Usher.
Something Worth Mentioning
The narrator's description of the scenery and scene on his way to
and into the house mingled with his feelings is very interesting. It can be
diveded into several stages.
1. Within the view of the House of Everything is dull, dark, and melancholy.
Usher.
Clouds hanging oppressively The narrator's feelings:
Shades of evening • A sense of insufferable gloom
Dreary tract of country • An utter depression of soul
Bleak walls • An iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the
Eye-liked windows heart
Rank sedges ( 莎草 ) • An unredeemed dreariness of thought
Decayed trees • shadowy fancies
Black and lurid tarn （ a small lake ）
2. Close to the buiding

discoloration

minite fungi

no portion fallen

a barely peceptible fissure extending from the
roof to the ground
 Excessive antiquity
 Crumbling condition
 Like a rotted wood-work with a
misleading totality
Picture from Inside NO. 9

3. Inside the house
Gothic archway
The house:
dark and intricate passage
 Dark, gloomy, silent
cravings on the ceiling
 Silent servant and strange
sombre tapestries （暗色的挂毯） physician
black floors
rattling phantasmagoric
The narrator:
armorial trophies
Strengthened sentiments which
A physician with cunning,
he already has
perplexity and
trepidation （ fear ）
4. Inside the room The room:
dark drapperies Large and lofty
confortless, antique and Dark and gloomy
tattered furniture
An atomosphere of sorrow
scattered books and
instruments
The narrator:
Feeling the sorrow and gloom
of the house
5. Finally Roderick Usher Roderick:
Cadaverous complexion Pale
A large, liquid, and luminous eye Unusual appearance
(The narrator says “an...eye”, so
maybe Roderick's only got one eye.)
The narrator:
Thin and palid lips
Startled and awed
Unusually broad nostril
Hair of a more than web-like

softness and tenuity
Ghastly pallor of the skin(extremely
pale)
My thoughts
● The scenery outside the house, the house itself and everything in the
house are similarly gloomy. The description mingled with the
narrator's thoughts and feelings, creates an atmosphere of coldness,
darkness and gloominess.
● The whole process of getting close to the house and its owner is like
the process of unveiling. Layer by layer, readers and the narrator get
to know the master of the place Roderick. What's said before has
added to the mysteriousness of him. He is like a bride covered by
veils.
● In the process of uncovering him, the narrator seems to be peeling an
onion. Through the peeling, we readers form our fi rst impression on
Roderick, that he is not likely to be a normal person.
Pictures from Inside NO. 9
My thoughts
The author Edgar Allan Poe designs the dreary environment like
setting a stage for a horror fi lm. Creepy stories happen in creepy places.
As the narrator moves on, what he sees becomes more and more
creepy and gloomy, his feelings thus get gradually strengthened, as well
as the feelings of readers. I can feel that I am getting caught, terrifi ed
and fascinated when I move on through paragraphs. Before I fi nally get
the chance to meet with Roderick with the narrator I have so many
horrible conjectures. For example, Roderick is severely ill so he needs
the narrator for a sacrifi ce to prolong his life, using some kind of
witchcraft, like trandferring his soul into the narrator's as a movie does.
Or Roderick is a vampire in want of the narraotr's blood. Or Roderick has
already died, and all these incidents happens after his death.
The Tarn
1. (p.1)...I reined the horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid
tarn that lay in unruffl ed lustre by the dwelling, and gaze down---but
will a shudder and even more thrilling than before---upon the
remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly
tree-stems, and the vacant eye-like windows.
2.(p.4) I have said that the sole eff ect of my somewhat childish
experiment--- that of looking down within the tarn--- had been to
deepen the fi rst singular impression.
3. (the p. about the house's appearance)Perhaps the eye of a
scrutinising observer might have discovered a barely perceptible
fi ssure, whihc, extending from the roof of the building in front, made
its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the
sullen waters of the tarn.
The Tarn
4. (another feature of his singualr mental condition)...an eff ect which the
physique of the gray walls and turrents, and of the dim tarn into which they all
looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.
5. The conditions of sentience had been here... in the long undisturbed
endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of
the tarn.
6. These appearnaces , which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomenon
not uncommon---or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank
miasma of the tarn.
7. There was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand
waters, and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over
the fragments of the “HOUSE OF USHER”.
The Tarn
The story begins with the tarn; the horror eff ects are strengthened by
the tarn; and at last, the story ends with the tarn drowning the House of
Usher.
It foreshadows the end of the story, that is the tarn drowns the house.
In the beginning, the narrator sees the refl ection of the house in the
water, and at the end, the house does falls into the water.
The tarn burying the house means complete eradication. If not buried
by the tarn, the ruins on the ground will be seen and remembered. But
when buried, the house, the family, have no trace left in the world.
The Fall of the House of Usher
The fall of the House of Usher means not only the collapse of the
physical house.
In the story here's such a sentence, “...so identifi ed the two as to merge
the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of
the House of Usher---an appellation which seemd to include, in the
minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family
mansion. ”
So the fall of the House of Usher not only means the collapse of the
ancient building, but the death of Roderick and Madeline as the last
generation of the family, and the eradication of the Usher race.
What needs to be noted is that, Roderick and Madeline is a couple,

since the Usher family, according to the story, “lay in the direct line of
The brother and the sister
The brother:
● A host of unnatural sensations
● A morbid acuteness of the senses
● The most insipid food; garments of certain texture; no fragrance of fl owers; no
light; certain sounds from stringed instruments
The sister:
● A long-continued dissolution
Extremely
● A settled apathy sensetivity V.S.
Extreme insensitivity
● A gradual wasting away of the person
● Frequent aff ections of a partial catalepsy
● No response to the outside world
Thank you for your
attention!

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The Fall of the House of Usher

by Edgar Allan Poe

On a dark, dull and soundless day in the

For the next few Madeline soon

But strange sounds come from the house, which

10 Gradually the crack widens and the

Picture from Inside NO. 9

Hair of a more than web-like

What needs to be noted is that, Roderick and Madeline is a couple,

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