What Is The Irony In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a tale about a man who is written to by an old childhood friend named Roderick Usher. Roderick Usher is part of the Usher family who was known for having an extraneous family name due to their closed off reputation from the world around them. Their bloodline is known for being “pure” and having put off no branches “..that the stem of the Usher race, all time honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch..” (Poe, 23), alluding to the thought that they were an incestual family. Nonetheless, in the letter, Roderick explains to the narrator that he is suffering from a mental and bodily illness and that he wishes to see his one childhood friend so that he may help to relieve him from the
Later on in the story, the realization is made that the house matches the mood and illness of Roderick Usher. Anyways, the narrator enters the house and finds his old friend Roderick laying on a sofa in a large room that he had been ushered to by a servant. Roderick obviously had an illness, as he carried an air of sickness about him and had a pallid sickly look to him “The now ghastly pallor of the skin..” (25) . They re-introduce themselves, as it had been such a long time, and the narrator settles himself
Roderick Usher preferred to read the manual of a forgotten church, causing the narrator to question the influence on the condition of Usher and how it was affecting him further. “I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac..” (32). However, his state was being affected as well. As seen by when Madeline “died”, the narrator was beginning to think along the same lines as Usher. Usher desired to preserve Madeline’s body because he was worried that she would be experimented on in wonder over her peculiar disease. The narrator believed that this was for the best, leading the reader to perceive that he was becoming nervous about these circumstances as well. Furthermore, when they were closing her up in the tomb, the narrator noticed a faint blush still about her “....the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death.” (34), alluding to the idea that she was still alive. Nonetheless, they close her in the tomb and go on with their