Fallacy Of Usher

Kelly Cassidy October 2, 2015

ENG 110 07 Dr. Hey (HOW ARE YOU!)

The Fall of the House of Usher

In the short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allen Poe, Poe’s story picks apart the psychological drama of the Usher’s, mainly focusing on Roderick. It is apparent to the reader that Roderick Usher is suffering from some kind of mental illness. Much of the cause of his mental illness derives from the fact that his family has isolated themselves from society. Because
The tarn that surrounds the house is just one of the barriers that prevent contact with the outside world. Pathetic Fallacy, which is when nature reflects human emotions and seems to respond to human actions, can be seen as Roderick’s state of depression and isolation coincides with the dreary, dark, and gloomy aspects of the setting and house itself. The Usher family has inbred to preserve the family line of descendants and therefore has not created different branches of the family tree. On page 88 it states that “I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honoured as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of decent…” The house and family became one and the same. The Ushers were a reserved family who never socialized outside the immediate family. It can be interpreted that Roderick and his sister Madelyn had an incestuous relationship that was seen as a taboo act. During this time period, human beings that acted in a taboo way coincidentally seemed to be punished by nature or a supernatural force. This incestuous guilt has led to physical and mental maladies that have taken their toll on both Roderick and his sister. Roderick realizes that the end is coming to the House of
He senses that the house itself is causing much of his illness. His reading of the “The Haunted Palace,” the poem on page 93 and 94 reflects his fear of a once glorious, vibrant place becoming a decrepit and deteriorated one, much like the structure of the physical house and of Roderick himself. As his fears increase, his perception of his surroundings becomes more and more distorted. After burying his sister Roderick admits to the narrator that his hyper senses have heard his sister’s sounds from her tomb for a while. On page 100 he states “... I heard them -many, many days ago-yet I dared not-I dared not to speak!..” The repressed always finds a way to return and when it does, it usually comes back in a different way as seen with Roderick. His long, anticipated fear comes true when his apparently “dead” sister appears at his door in a phantom and supernatural way. This image literally frightens him to death. He could bury his fears and mental illness only for so long until it came back to haunt him in a way that he could never recover