Brittani Bulloch
English 11
7 November 2016
Literary Essay In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, you learn that the title of the story has two meanings to it. The two meanings are literary and metaphorical. The story is about a old man and his sister who live in a very old house together and the brother is holding her hostage their. The sister tries to leave but her brother won’t let her. She has a disease where she falls asleep randomly and doesn’t wake up. The brother knows she is alive but is insane, so he acts as if she is dead and puts her in a coffin until she wakes up and escapes. As the family gets more insane and sick, the same happens for the house and it starts to fall apart. The title of the story can be interpreted in many ways. First, is the literal House of Usher, that the narrator goes to in the story. Then there is the metaphorical fall of the Usher family. Throughout the story you will notice the differences in the meanings and also notice how they are very similar. How they are different is that the literal meaning of the title is that the actual house is falling apart. The metaphorical meaning is the family in the house are falling apart and getting very sick. …show more content…
The house is very old and is falling apart piece by piece. There is a fissure in the wall outside and it is causing the house to shake and fall apart. The narrator notices the fissure and warns the brother and he says that he doesn’t care and would rather die in the house than live. This leads to you finding out about the metaphorical meaning of the title and how it relates to the literal