Card Report for Fall of the House of Usher

Story: The Fall of the House of Usher
Author: Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)
Central Character: The Friend, a man who is not named or described, only that he had known Roderick Usher in their childhood. Roderick Usher is described as paler and less energetic than he once was. He is the fraternal twin brother of Madeline Usher.
Other characters: Madeline Usher is notably ill with a mysterious sickness. Also the house of Usher itself has placed upon the friend a feeling strong enough to be thought of as a character; described as having absorbed an evil and diseased atmosphere. The structure is decaying in places but seemingly solid, with a crack that runs from roof to ground.
Setting: A dark, dull, and soundless day in Autumn. The friend rides up to the creepy, dark, dreary, unnerving House of Usher.
Narrator: The point of view is that of the unnamed friend who had been written to, to visit the House of Usher.
Summary: (1) The Narrator experiences the doom and gloom of a man he once knew in childhood. His surroundings and feelings are told of his visit to the House of Usher, upon receiving a letter beckoning him to come, for the man he once knew, did not have another friend in the world to reach out to. (2) When he arrives he has an unnerving feeling about the estate itself, noting the iciness and the dreadful, sorrowful impression of the house. (3) He is re-acquainted with his friend Roderick Usher and notices on sight of him that he is a shell of the person he once knew in their childhood. (4) For the next few days the narrator painted and read with Roderick, or he just listened to him play his guitar, trying to help him out of his slump. During this time we find out that Roderick does not live in the house alone his sister, Madeline, who we find has a mysterious sickness, walks by them a single time and is not see or heard from again until her death. (5) Roderick’s sister dies and he asks his friend to help him in the arrangements of her temporary entombment. They carry her down to the tombs beneath the house and lay her to rest there. This is when the friend notices the similarity of the brother and sister noting they are twins. (6) In the next few days, Roderick seemed to dive deeper into depression, first with the grief of losing his sister, then with the sickness itself growing worse. He began to stare vacantly for hours listening to imaginary voices. (7) About a week later, one stormy night Roderick entered his friend’s chambers unable to sleep due to a fierce storm. The friend begins to read his a story by Sir Lancelot Canning when they hear a sound in the hall. Scared, the friend jumps to his feet, while Roderick only turns his chair to face the door directly. His body trembling, he started to murmur. The friend bent closely over him to hear what he was saying and he was confessing that he heard the sounds of his sister for days now trying to escape the tomb in which they had left her. (8) Roderick screams “Madman! I tell you she now stands without the door!” At that moment, the door flies open with a huge gust of wind to reveal she stands there with her white robes bloodied from her attempts at escape. She sways momentarily, then falls heavily inward onto her brother and he falls to the floor dead from fear. (9) The friend horrified, runs from the house fast as he can. He only looks back once he is at a safe distance, and sees the crack that ran from top of the house to bottom, open up and collapse the House of Usher.

Tone: Poe paints a very dark, sorrowful, foreboding picture with this story. Roderick has only one friend to call to his side and it is a person who barely knows him. The friend is not even aware that Roderick is a twin which would seem to be something simple a friend would know about another. Also the house is read as a creepy dreary place, no happiness is found in this story.
Style: Gothic style
Irony: His own fear is ironic. Roderick may have seen so much of himself in his sister that her physical illness bode terminal on his mental state, that his mind began crumble as her medical state did. He wanted her dead so the fear of his well-being would be alleviated, when in actuality, his fear became that of her escaping the tomb and the sheer sight of her literally ended up scaring him to death.
Theme: Reflection of how one sees themself, and how it affects what/who is actually there.
Symbols: Crack in the house symbolizes the divide in the house. Although they are twins, which twins are usually close, these two are not close at all.
Evaluation: Parts of this story are very hard to follow. The elaborations are excellent, but very extreme, to the point where the reader will have to at times read and re-read parts to continue.