The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allan Poe)
Although Poe lived before a time when mental illnesses were prioritized, experts have given him tentative diagnoses in retrospect. Among these are depression, alcoholism (substance abuse), and suicidal ideations. Traces of these concepts can be found within The Fall of the House of Usher in ways such as:
Roderick’s aversion to anything overwhelming to the senses (strong tastes, smells, etc.)
How even having his friend around (the Narrator) Roderick doesn’t seem to “cheer him up” or lighten his spirits
Roderick’s lack of aversion to pain
I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result…
Roderick & Madeline’s attachment to their home and lack of desire/ability to leave it (his house is later implied to be the cause of his illness)
He had certain sick fears about the house in which he lived, and he had not stepped out of it for many years.
He believed that they gray stones of his house, and the small plants growing on the stones, and the decaying trees, had a power over him that made him what he was.
Roderick’s creations (paintings and such) consistently reflecting his dreary moods (much like Poe’s did)
Poe has an undercurrent of duality throughout the entire short story. He shows an obsession with two different entities or concepts being united into a whole, both being incomplete without eachother.
Both Madeline & Roderick were affected by the same sickness, though the sickness was seemingly unknown and impacted only them (within the first section of the story). Emphasize is placed on the sickness being exclusive to the two of them, and thus singles them out as a duo.
Within the climax of the story the Narrator watches Madeline break through a door into Roderick’s room and then collapse dead onto her twin brother and drag him to the floor. The next moment, they are both dead. Through their dying at the same moment, Poe demonstrates the strength of their connection.
While Madeline was assumed dead by the Narrator, Roderick states as his last words that he knew she was still alive.
"Yes!" he said. "I heard it! Many minutes, many hours, many days have I heard it—but I did not dare to speak! We have put her living in the vault! Did I not say that my senses were too strong?"
Focusing in on the quote, "...but I did not dare to speak!" said by Roderick, the use of the word "dare" tells us that he was afraid of something.
Knowing what we do of his relationship with his twin sister-more specifically, how Roderick understands his uncanny connection with her-along with his relationship with the fear of death, we can assume that Roderick's reasoning for being afraid of telling somebody that Madeline was still alive (which would have led to her being freed from the tomb) could be to kill her via asphyxiation, hunger, or thirst.
In killing her himself, he may have been hoping to break the connection that he knew existed between them, and thus free himself from the fate that would have awaited both him & her- that being to die of Fear. This relates to Poe's fascination with attempting to escape an ending or death that has already been determined by an outside force.
Poe shows duality by having the lake become the mirror image of the house-not quite the same, but evidently similar. When The House of Usher collapses, it falls into the lake, just as Madeline falls into Roderick. This represents the two halves combining into one, again demonstrating how fate inevitably will prevail.
While one might at first assume that The Narrator is the only one in the story without a pairing, thus making them stand out and be a focal point of the story's dissection, that's not the case. The Narrator's second half lies not within the story, but as the story's reader. This is because The Narrator and the reader are the only two characters that the story could not function without. In doing this, Edgar Allan Poe creates a link between the reader and The Narrator, signifying that what happens to one will happen to the other. As according to fate one half of a whole cannot escape the other half's demise, when Poe speaks of The Narrator beginning to succumb to The House of Usher's instability, he implies that the reader will fall to the same illness.
...experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep did not come - while the hours passed. My mind fought against the nervousness. I tried to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt was due to the gloomy room, to the dark wall coverings...
Poe emphasizes how fate cannot be escaped through a variety ways, including:
The twins dying simultaneously (two halves combining)
The visions being given to Roderick that he then painted coming true (The House's influence
The house collapsing into the lake (two halves combining)
The house beginning to affect The Narrator (its power overtaking a weaker mind)
The events of the book being read to Roderick seeming to happen in real life (the book serves as symbolism to how what is "written" or decided by another person or entity (in this case, The House) comes true despite it seeming impossible
As The Narrator attempts to calm Roderick in the final pages of The Fall of the House of Usher, he reads from a nearby book, The Mad Trist.
The old book which I had picked up was one written by a fool for fools to read...
The Narrator expresses his disdain for the book, calling it "a fool's book". Within the portion of the book that he reads to Roderick, it tells of a champion, Ethelred, who attempts to escape from a storm by breaking into a building.
Similarly as to how the Narrator has tried to shield Roderick from the storm by turning him from the window and distracting him, Ethelred within The Mad Trist attempts to hide from a storm. The Narrator describes Ethelred's attempts at finding refuge as "sought in vain", not recognizing the irony he created when doing the same for Roderick. This implies that the Narrator's attempts at protecting Roderick will too be in vain.
https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the_fall_of_the_house_of_usher.pdf (simplified)
https://www.owleyes.org/text/fall-house-usher/read/the-fall-house-usher#root-74943-8-8
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36102289
Although Poe lived before a time when mental illnesses were prioritized, experts have given him tentative diagnoses in retrospect. Among these are depression, alcoholism (substance abuse), and suicidal ideations. Traces of these concepts can be found within The Fall of the House of Usher in ways such as:
Roderick’s aversion to anything overwhelming to the senses (strong tastes, smells, etc.)
How even having his friend around (the Narrator) Roderick doesn’t seem to “cheer him up” or lighten his spirits
Roderick’s lack of aversion to pain
I have, indeed, no fear of pain, but only fear of its result…
Roderick & Madeline’s attachment to their home and lack of desire/ability to leave it (his house is later implied to be the cause of his illness)
He had certain sick fears about the house in which he lived, and he had not stepped out of it for many years.
He believed that they gray stones of his house, and the small plants growing on the stones, and the decaying trees, had a power over him that made him what he was.
Roderick’s creations (paintings and such) consistently reflecting his dreary moods (much like Poe’s did)
Poe has an undercurrent of duality throughout the entire short story. He shows an obsession with two different entities or concepts being united into a whole, both being incomplete without eachother.
Both Madeline & Roderick were affected by the same sickness, though the sickness was seemingly unknown and impacted only them (within the first section of the story). Emphasize is placed on the sickness being exclusive to the two of them, and thus singles them out as a duo.
Within the climax of the story the Narrator watches Madeline break through a door into Roderick’s room and then collapse dead onto her twin brother and drag him to the floor. The next moment, they are both dead. Through their dying at the same moment, Poe demonstrates the strength of their connection.
While Madeline was assumed dead by the Narrator, Roderick states as his last words that he knew she was still alive.
"Yes!" he said. "I heard it! Many minutes, many hours, many days have I heard it—but I did not dare to speak! We have put her living in the vault! Did I not say that my senses were too strong?"
Focusing in on the quote, "...but I did not dare to speak!" said by Roderick, the use of the word "dare" tells us that he was afraid of something.
Knowing what we do of his relationship with his twin sister-more specifically, how Roderick understands his uncanny connection with her-along with his relationship with the fear of death, we can assume that Roderick's reasoning for being afraid of telling somebody that Madeline was still alive (which would have led to her being freed from the tomb) could be to kill her via asphyxiation, hunger, or thirst.
In killing her himself, he may have been hoping to break the connection that he knew existed between them, and thus free himself from the fate that would have awaited both him & her- that being to die of Fear. This relates to Poe's fascination with attempting to escape an ending or death that has already been determined by an outside force.
Poe shows duality by having the lake become the mirror image of the house-not quite the same, but evidently similar. When The House of Usher collapses, it falls into the lake, just as Madeline falls into Roderick. This represents the two halves combining into one, again demonstrating how fate inevitably will prevail.
While one might at first assume that The Narrator is the only one in the story without a pairing, thus making them stand out and be a focal point of the story's dissection, that's not the case. The Narrator's second half lies not within the story, but as the story's reader. This is because The Narrator and the reader are the only two characters that the story could not function without. In doing this, Edgar Allan Poe creates a link between the reader and The Narrator, signifying that what happens to one will happen to the other. As according to fate one half of a whole cannot escape the other half's demise, when Poe speaks of The Narrator beginning to succumb to The House of Usher's instability, he implies that the reader will fall to the same illness.
...experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep did not come - while the hours passed. My mind fought against the nervousness. I tried to believe that much, if not all, of what I felt was due to the gloomy room, to the dark wall coverings...
Poe emphasizes how fate cannot be escaped through a variety ways, including:
The twins dying simultaneously (two halves combining)
The visions being given to Roderick that he then painted coming true (The House's influence
The house collapsing into the lake (two halves combining)
The house beginning to affect The Narrator (its power overtaking a weaker mind)
The events of the book being read to Roderick seeming to happen in real life (the book serves as symbolism to how what is "written" or decided by another person or entity (in this case, The House) comes true despite it seeming impossible
As The Narrator attempts to calm Roderick in the final pages of The Fall of the House of Usher, he reads from a nearby book, The Mad Trist.
The old book which I had picked up was one written by a fool for fools to read...
The Narrator expresses his disdain for the book, calling it "a fool's book". Within the portion of the book that he reads to Roderick, it tells of a champion, Ethelred, who attempts to escape from a storm by breaking into a building.
Similarly as to how the Narrator has tried to shield Roderick from the storm by turning him from the window and distracting him, Ethelred within The Mad Trist attempts to hide from a storm. The Narrator describes Ethelred's attempts at finding refuge as "sought in vain", not recognizing the irony he created when doing the same for Roderick. This implies that the Narrator's attempts at protecting Roderick will too be in vain.
https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the_fall_of_the_house_of_usher.pdf (simplified)
https://www.owleyes.org/text/fall-house-usher/read/the-fall-house-usher#root-74943-8-8
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36102289
