Short story

Gutenberg eBook

Author

It begins with the unidentified male narrator riding to the house of Roderick Usher, a childhood friend whom the narrator has not seen in many years. The narrator explains that he recently received a letter from Roderick detailing his worsening mental illness and requesting the narrator’s company.

Out of sympathy for his old friend, the narrator agreed to come. Aside from his knowledge of Roderick’s ancient and distinguished family, the narrator knows very little about his friend. Upon arriving, the narrator describes the Usher family mansion in great detail, focusing on its most fantastic features and its unearthly atmosphere.

Shortly after entering, the narrator is greeted by Roderick, who displays a number of strange symptoms. He claims his senses are especially acute: therefore, he cannot wear clothes of certain textures or eat particularly flavourful foods, and his eyes are bothered by even the faintest lights.

Within a few hours of the narrator’s arrival, Roderick begins to share some of his theories about his family. Much to the narrator’s surprise, Roderick claims that the Usher mansion is sentient and that it exercises some degree of control over its inhabitants.

He declares that his illness is the product of “a constitutional and a family evil.” (The narrator later dismisses this as a cognitive symptom of Roderick’s “nervous affection.”) Roderick also reveals that Madeline, his twin sister and sole companion in the house, is gravely ill. According to Roderick, Madeline suffers from a cataleptic disease that has gradually limited her mobility. As Roderick talks about his sister’s illness, the narrator sees her pass through a distant part of the house.

The narrator spends the next few days painting, reading, and listening to Roderick play music. He recalls the eerie lyrics from one of Roderick’s songs, endearingly titled “The Haunted Palace.” The penultimate stanza goes:

Several days after the narrator’s arrival, Roderick announces the death of his sister. He asks the narrator to help bury her. As they lay her in a tomb beneath the house, the narrator notes that she is smiling, and her cheeks are rosy.

Over the next few days, the narrator observes a change in his friend’s behaviour: Roderick has begun to display symptoms of madness and hysteria. He neglects his work, wandering aimlessly around the house and staring off into the distance. Increasingly spooked by his friend and his environment, the narrator begins to suffer from insomnia.

Late one night, Roderick visits the narrator in his bedchamber. After a few moments of silence, he abruptly asks, “And you have not seen it?” He then throws open the window to reveal that the house—and indeed everything outside—is enveloped in a glowing gas.

The baffled narrator blames it on electrical phenomena resulting from an ongoing storm. He attempts to soothe Roderick by reading aloud to him from “Mad Trist,” a medieval romance by Sir Launcelot Canning. (The romance and Canning are Poe’s inventions.) As the narrator reads, sounds from the book seemingly begin to manifest in the house.

After a while, the narrator stops reading and approaches Roderick, who is slumped over in a chair, rocking and muttering to himself. For the first time, the narrator listens to what Roderick is saying. He learns that Roderick has been hearing sounds for days. He believes they are coming from Madeline, whom he thinks they have buried alive. As the horror of his words dawns on the narrator, Roderick suddenly springs to his feet, yelling “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!”

At Roderick’s words, the door bursts open, revealing Madeline all in white with blood on her robes. With a moan, she falls on her brother, and, by the time they hit the floor, both Roderick and Madeline are dead. The narrator thereupon flees in terror. Outside, he looks back just in time to see the house split in two and collapse.

It is not uncommon for Poe to use first-person narration in his stories. In fact, the majority of Poe’s short stories use this type of narration. The narrator of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” however, is unique in that he is unidentified aside from his gender.

The story contains no descriptions of his physical features, his age, or where he is traveling from. Apart from his boyhood friendship with Roderick, his history is unknown.

The absence of a specific description of his character allows the reader to easily identify with the narrator. In effect, the reader assumes the role of the narrator and experiences the fall of the house of Usher as both an observer and a participant—just as Poe intended.

The Narrator

Roderick Usher

Madeline Usher