The Fall of the House of Usher

“The Fall of the House of Usher” In the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the author Edgar Allen Poe uses a gothic style to convey a theme that there are two sides to every person but they conceal who they truly are because they are disappointed in what the person see. This short story is about a character named Roderick Usher who lives in this gothic style house with his twin sister Madeline. The author uses a gothic style setting, violent incidents, physical torment, and a supernatural atmosphere to convey this theme. This short story obtains a setting on a “[…] soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, […]- upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain- upon the bleak walls- upon the vacant eyelike windows- upon a few rank sedges and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees- with an utter depression of soul, […]”(page 308). The narrator narrates the description of the twin’s lives, who allegedly befriends one of the main characters Roderick Usher. In order for Roderick Usher to repress a side that symbolizes him, a violent incident occurs. The violent incident happens when Madeline is buried alive and she finally escapes after eight days of clawing her way out. Then she on page 324 “[stood with blood in her white robes] and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and from upon the threshold- then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipate.” On page 324 the character Roderick becomes aware his twin sister still lives and he just did not have the courtesy to help her “[…]- yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long-long-long- many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it- yet I dared no-[…].” This quote expresses