The Fall of the House of Usher is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), an American writer and poet, best known for his stories of horror and mystery, which have become classics of American literature. The Fall of the House of Usher is one of Poe's best known tales and as a literary critic said his "most complex story and the one that most comprehensively expresses his vision". It clearly shows Poe's skill at creating the perfect setting and atmosphere for his horror story and drawing the reader into his narrative.
It is a first person narrative but the reader never finds out who the narrator is. He has been invited to visit a long-time friend, whom he has not seen in quite a while. The reader is told at the very start of the story that the term "House of Usher" applies both to the mansion in which the Usher family has lived for many generations but also to the members of the family who inhabit it. The narrator draws a parallel between what he describes as "the mansion of gloom" and its inhabitants. It soon becomes clear that the narrator's friend, Roderick Usher, has not been well, and even in the letter sent to his friend his "nervous agitation" is obvious. He lives in the house with his sister, Madeline, who dies shortly after the narrator's arrival. The narrator gives very little information about Madeline, except for the "striking similitude between the brother and sister", an allusion to the fact that they might be twins. After her death, Madeline reappears with "blood upon her white robes" and her brother has to admit that they "have put her living in the tomb!" Roderick Usher then dies, "a victim to the terrors he had anticipated" and while the narrator flees the House of Usher falls apart and crumbles.
The reader's first glimpse of the House of Usher sets the tone for the rest of the story. We are told that the story begins on a "dull, dark and soundless day" (note the alliteration) and that the sight of the House produces in the narrator "a sense of insufferable gloom".
Through an accumulation of adjectives such as "dark, gloomy, bleak, sinking, sickening, dreary, etc.", Poe creates a dark and eerie mood. The house itself takes on an almost human dimension with its "vacant eye-like windows" and is practically one of the characters in this story. Thanks to the narrator's description of his surroundings and the impact it has on him, the reader knows right away that this tale cannot end well. However, the reader cannot help wondering whether these impressions are the result of the narrator's overactive imagination or whether the House of Usher is really doomed. As the plot unfolds, the reader is also affected by the horror felt by the narrator, who is "overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable". Yet, like the narrator, until Madeline appears, the reader does not quite know what to make of Roderick's visions. Even after reading the story, readers will still wonder who Roderick and Madeline are, who the narrator is, what really happened and what it all means.
