Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher
A Summary of Edgar Allan Poe’s Supreme Example of Gothic Horror
Aug 2, 2008
The narrator begins by describing a dreary fall day. He was traveling alone when he came within view of the house, which caused a sense of gloom to enter his soul. It was not a self-indulgent gloominess, which can be enjoyed, but deep depression.
He had been invited to the mansion by a letter from its owner, Roderick Usher, who was a childhood friend. In the letter, Usher tells the narrator that he is physically and mentally ill. He requested a visit from the narrator who was his best and only close friend. The narrator could not refuse such a heartfelt request.
The History of the House of Usher
The narrator claims that although he knew Usher from childhood, they were not close because Usher had a reticent personality However, he was aware that the family was of an ancient lineage which was uninterrupted by marriage to outsiders. He briefly considers what an unbroken family line can do in terms of mental and physical health. He then proceeds to share that the mansion had been in the family so long that the name “The House of Usher” referred to both the family and the building itself.
A Description of the House
The narrator gives a detailed description of the house, which is extremely old. He says that the age of the house gives the impression of being a hollow façade and not a ‘real’ building. He also mentions a small fracture that runs from roof of the house and zigzags down to the water that surrounds the building.
Meeting Roderick Usher
The narrator enters the house; the valet leads him through the house and past the nervous family physician in the hallway. He gives a detailed description of the mood and décor of the house, which can best be summed up, in his statement “An air of stern, deep and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.”
Usher greets the narrator with sincerity and warmth. The narrator is shocked by the changed appearance of Usher, especially by the pale skin and overly bright eyes. Usher’s extreme mood swings disturb the narrator.
Usher describes to his friend the nature of his illness. He claimed that it was a nervous disease that was hereditary. His senses were overly acute. He could only eat bland food and wear certain fabrics. The smell of flowers sickened him and light hurt his eyes. Nearly all music filled him with horror with the exception of stringed instruments. The narrator sensed that his friend was enslaved to a strange terror. Usher believed that he would die from his illness and he confessed dread not in dying but in the results of going through death. He also shared his belief that the house caused his condition.
Madeline Usher
Madeline is Roderick’s sister and the only other surviving Usher. She was his only companion. However, she was very ill and near death. While the narrator and Usher spoke of Madeline, she walked slowly through a distant part of the room and disappeared. The narrator was frightened by her appearance, although he was unable to say why.
Madeline’s physicians did not understand the nature of her illness, which manifested itself in a wasting of her body and cataleptic trances. That evening her condition worsened and she was confined to her room.
Entertaining the Sick
After his arrival, the narrator attempted to alleviate the melancholy of Usher. They read and painted together. Sometimes the narrator listened to Usher play his guitar and sing. He describes Usher’s paintings as abstract renderings of ideas. When Usher played his guitar he often accompanied the music with rhymed, improvised lyrics. The narrator shares one of Usher’s poems, which was titled “The Haunted Palace.” The verses seemed to describe the House of Usher – both the physical house as well as the psychological house. The two also read obscure and occultic books together.
Madeline Dies
One evening, Usher informed the narrator that his sister had died and asked that he assist him in burying her in a vault inside the mansion to protect her from curious physicians. The narrator agrees and they bury her in a secure coffin. They then put the coffin in a room that was lined with copper and had an iron door. After Madeline’s burial, both Usher and the narrator become increasingly nervous.
The Fall of the House of Usher
About a week after Madeline’s death, there is a violent storm. The combination of nervous strain and the storm caused the narrator to get up and dress. Usher soon appears at his door. He asks the narrator if he has seen it and throws open the windows. The narrator believes that Usher has been disturbed by an electrical phenomenon of the storm and attempts to calm him by reading to him from a novel called the “Mad Trist.”
As the narrator reads a violent passage in the book, he hears noises in the mansion that seem to correspond with what he is reading. However, he chooses to believe that they are caused by the storm and continues to read the book. However, repeated coincidences between the atmosphere in the mansion and events in the story begin to unnerve him. Finally, he puts down the book and rushes to Usher and finds him nearly catatonic and mumbling to himself. Suddenly Usher leaps to his feet and screams “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door.”
Madeline enters the room at this terrifying announcement. She is covered with blood from her struggle to escape her tomb. She cries out and falls on her brother and they both collapse to the ground, dead.
The narrator flees the House of Usher. As he is escapes over the causeway he sees a wild light and turns to see the House of Usher lit by the blood-red moon. As he looks, the fracture he noted at his arrival tears apart and the house collapses.
