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Style and Interpretation

Terror, even this extreme which results in madness and death, is meaningless unless it is able to somehow illustrate a principle of human nature. One approach to understanding the true significance of this story lies in the many connections that Poe establishes for the reader. Roderick and Madeline are not just brother and sister but twins who share "sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature" which connect his mental disintegration to her physical decline. As Madeline's mysterious illness approaches physical paralysis, Roderick's mental agitation takes the form of a "morbid acuteness of the senses" that separates his body from the physical world making all normal sensations painful: "...the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these were from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror."

Besides the fact that Roderick and Madeline are not just twins but represent the mental and physical components of a single being or soul, there is also a connection between the family mansion and the remaining members who live within. Poe uses the phrase "House of Usher" to refer to both the decaying physical structure and the last of the "all time-honored Usher race...." Roderick has developed a theory that the stones of the house have consciousness, and that they embody the fate of the Usher family. "He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence for many years, he had never ventured forth...." Roderick also makes another connection between a house and a person in the poem, "The Haunted Palace." The crack in the Usher mansion which is at first barely discernible by the narrator, symbolically suggests a flaw or fundamental split in the twin personality of Roderick and Madeline, and fortells the final ruin of both family and mansion.

The narrator is connected to the Usher family since he and Roderick were once close boyhood companions. They have not seen each other for many years, and it is only because of their past closeness and the apparent emotion in Roderick's request that convinces the narrator to make the journey. As a result of this, the narrator spends the opening paragraphs reflecting upon the past as well as trying to prepare himself for the imminent reunion; however, nothing prepares him for the "altered" state of his childhood companion: "...a caderousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely molded chin, speaking in its want of of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten." ( Some of Poe's critics like to say that Poe is describing himself here.)

The narrator tries to comfort and rescue Roderick from an illness in which the exterior self has been lost to the interior world of the imagination. The isolation of Roderick's life from outer reality can be seen in the atmosphere surrounding the mansion which seems to arise from the decayed trees and dank tarn. Roderick's fantasy world is like that of an artist: his music; his literature which deals with extremes of the human imagination; and his art that portrays a vault which is illuminated from no visible source but is "...bathed...in a ghastly...splendor." Roderick, unlike an artist, has lost control of his fantasy world so that it has become all of reality.

In "The Fall of the House of Usher," Poe explores the inner workings of the human imagination but, at the same time, cautions the reader about the destructive dangers within. When fantasy suppresses reality and the physical self, as in Roderick's case, what results is madness and mental death. Madeline's return and actual death reunites the twin natures of their single being, claiming Roderick as a "victim to the terrors that he had anticipated."

The true focus of this story is the narrator's reaction to and understanding of these strange events. Even to look into the dark imagination where fantasy becomes reality is to evoke madness. That is why Roderick twice refers to the narrator as "Madman" in the final scene. The narrator has made a journey into the underworld of the mind and is nearly destroyed by it; however, he manages to escape and turns to watch as the "House of Usher" crumbles into "...the deep and dank tarn."

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