The Fall of The Houseof Usher – part II

- What is the relationship between the family and the house?-

1. The physical structure has effectively dictated the genetic patterns of the family.

Poe, creates confusion between the living things and inanimate objects by doubling the physical house of Usher with the genetic family line of the Usher family, which he refers to as the house of Usher. Poe employs the word “house” metaphorically, but he also describes a real house. Not only does the narrator get trapped inside the mansion, but we learn also that this confinement describes the biological fate of the Usher family. The family has no enduring branches, so all genetic transmission has occurred incestuously within the domain of the house.

2. House reflection in the shallow pool correlates with the symmetrical relation that also characterizes the relationship between Roderick and Madeline.

3. Connection between the house appearance and Roderick’s disease

The mansion's atmosphere seems to the narrator to be connected by its decay and disease to the underworld. It is this force, then, that creates the fungi and decay outside as well as within the house the fissure in the walls that forms a zigzag from the roof to the wall, a fissure that widens as Roderick begins to break down.

4. Roderick appearance correlates with the appearance of the house

Roderick’s eye loses it luminous quality and assumes an empty and ghastly appearance not unlike the "vacant and eyelike" windows of the mansion first noted by the narrator in the exposition of the story.

5. Death of characters is also the house collapse

When Roderick's sister dies he wanders through the house; opening the door, there is a tremendous whirlwind that sends inside vapors that "enshrouded the mansion"--a phrase mirrored by the "enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline Usher" who issues forth from her vault to embrace her brother in a death grip a final agonies for both. As they collapse in this terrible embrace, the fissure of the walls widens, and the "deep and dank tarn...closed sullenly...over the fragment of the "House of Usher."

6. The ghastly images inside the house symbolize the madness of the house's inhabitants.

-How do you understand the ending?-

The death of the Roderick, the last member of Usher’s family, is correlated with the house collapsing. The evidences that the mansion is closely connected with the family who owns it, are now undeniable. After the falling of the house, there was no stone, no sign of its existence, just like there was no one in the Usher’s family left.

-What does the title refer to?-

The title may have a few interpretations. The first one, probably the most obvious, is the title meaning the house as a building. It can emphasize the role of the building as the setting in the story. The second interpretation may be more symbolic. Reader can treat the house as the separate character. If so, the house acts as correlating with the Usher’s family – their physical and mental conditions. Therefore, the house collapses as the last member of Usher’s family dies.