The Fall Of The House Of Usher - Literary Analysis
The Fall Of the House Of Usher is a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe in 1839. The short story is complexly written, with challenging themes such as identity and fear. Poe utilises many elements of the Gothic Tradition such as setting and supernatural elements to create a more mysterious story, and uses language to his advantage, employing adjective filled descriptions of literal elements that also serve as metaphors for other parts of the story.
In The Fall Of The House of Usher, Poe explores challenging themes, the most prominent of which is the theme of identity. Throughout the story, the narrator tells us of his experiences with what is left of the Usher family at their estate. The theme of identity is clearly stated right at the beginning of the short story. The narrator states that the people living in the area surrounding the house “so identified the two… “House of Usher” – an appellation which seemed to include… both the family and the family mansion”. This confusion of identity between the family and the house is continued throughout the story, and the reader is never quite sure of which the narrator is speaking at any given time. Just as the identity of the family and the house is confused, so are the individual identities of Madeline and Roderick Usher. Brother and sister, the narrator discovers late in the story that the two are twins. Some academics have argued that The Fall Of the House Of Usher is not, in fact, the tale of a brother and sister, but one of a man with a split personality. In other words, many have argued that Madeline simply does not exist, and is merely another personality contained within Roderick Usher. In any case, be it that Madeline exists or not, the two characters of Roderick and Madeline are two halves of a whole. There are many examples of this throughout the story, the most obvious of which would be that Roderick suffered from “a mental disorder which oppressed him” and Madeline suffered from “frequent, although
In The Fall Of The House of Usher, Poe explores challenging themes, the most prominent of which is the theme of identity. Throughout the story, the narrator tells us of his experiences with what is left of the Usher family at their estate. The theme of identity is clearly stated right at the beginning of the short story. The narrator states that the people living in the area surrounding the house “so identified the two… “House of Usher” – an appellation which seemed to include… both the family and the family mansion”. This confusion of identity between the family and the house is continued throughout the story, and the reader is never quite sure of which the narrator is speaking at any given time. Just as the identity of the family and the house is confused, so are the individual identities of Madeline and Roderick Usher. Brother and sister, the narrator discovers late in the story that the two are twins. Some academics have argued that The Fall Of the House Of Usher is not, in fact, the tale of a brother and sister, but one of a man with a split personality. In other words, many have argued that Madeline simply does not exist, and is merely another personality contained within Roderick Usher. In any case, be it that Madeline exists or not, the two characters of Roderick and Madeline are two halves of a whole. There are many examples of this throughout the story, the most obvious of which would be that Roderick suffered from “a mental disorder which oppressed him” and Madeline suffered from “frequent, although