The Fall of the House of Usher

“I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment—that of looking down within the tarn—had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition—for why should I not so term it?—served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis.”

The narrator expresses that the fear he experienced on entering the grounds intensified his desire to seek out more of that feeling, hence his looking into the tarn, as if he half-hoped to see something frightening. He makes an important statement about terror: Paradoxically, we find a thrill once our fear has been aroused. This is the premise on which Gothic and all horror genres operate.

“[A]n atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn—a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.”

One of horror’s characteristics is the reversal of natural order. Instead of clean air coming from the sky, near the house, a diseased air comes up from the ground. The language is not only poetic; in a damp environment, mold, bacteria, and other microorganisms can create toxic gas that is dangerous.

“Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine web-work from the eaves.”

In large concentrations, fungi can create clouds of spores, which can produce toxic fumes that are dangerous if inhaled. Certain types of fungi are psychedelics and create hallucinogenic effects if ingested. The type of fungi is not specified, but the impression is one of sickness hanging in the air.

“The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within.”

Just as Poe describes the house’s exterior in detail, the description of the inside of the house contributes to the dark, Gothic mood. The lofty room and high pointed windows are characteristic of Gothic architecture. The room has a vaulted and fretted ceiling, which are also classic Gothic markers. The large, dark interior in which the narrator struggles to find his bearings represents the darkness that threatens to envelop his consciousness.

“Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood.”

This passage signals that something significant has happened to Usher between the last time the narrator has seen him and the present. The detail that Usher is different than he used to be is important because it means that whatever has happened is having a degenerative effect. Since the events of the intervening years are not explained, the reader is left to guess what may have caused Usher’s downward spiral.

“I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, Fear.”

This is one of the few passages in which Usher speaks directly to the narrator. He describes the nature of his anxiety of the terror that awaits him at some future point. Essentially, he fears fear, rather than the thing or event that will cause him to be afraid. It is unclear if Usher knows or suspects what will happen to trigger this mind-destroying terror, if, for example, he believes it will involve Madeline, or if he has a vague sentiment based on his growing anxiety about the house’s forces acting upon him.

“The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character were the unusual diagnosis.”

The description of Madeline’s disease does not fit any single diagnosis. Catalepsy causes seizures, rigidity of the body, and an increased loss of mobility. As Usher is describing Madeline’s condition, she walks silently across the far corner of the room, seemingly without difficulty. This casts doubt or at least suspicion on the nature of Madeline’s illness, since this is the last time she is seen before the climax. The passage brings Usher’s reliability into question. Just before Madeline attacks, Usher confesses his knowledge of her escape from the tomb. It is possible that Usher is inventing a cause for Madeline’s illness to keep the narrator ignorant as to what is really happening.

“The result [of the house’s sentience] was discoverable, he added, in that silent yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw him—what he was.”

The narrator reports Usher’s explanation for his disordered state as the result of the house’s malevolence acting upon his family for generations. The narrator refuses to comment on this idea, implying that he finds it absurd. Nevertheless, the narrator has already remarked on the house’s excessive gloominess and the uncanny effects it has on his own mood and psyche.

“The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme, terror, habitually characterized his utterance.”

After Madeline’s burial, Usher’s condition worsens. The terror he anticipated has come to pass, in Madeline’s death. This change in Usher signifies the end of the rising action and the beginning of the climax.

“There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness...”

For the first time, the narrator voices his suspicion that Usher is hiding something. The reader is cleverly steered away from contemplating this for too long because if the narrator dwelled on this idea, it would put all of the story’s events into question and force readers to question Usher’s true motive.

“But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.”

Earlier, the narrator establishes that the house is covered with fungi. Some types of fungi are bioluminescent, meaning they can glow in the dark. This is one possible rational explanation for the strange glowing light around the house.

“…I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read.”

The narrator describes his logic for reading “The Mad Trist” to Usher. While the story parallels Madeline’s arrival, its “extremeness of folly,” also parallels “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Doubts have been seeded to both the narrator’s and Usher’s reliability. The tale—as told by two unreliable characters—is a “mad trist” in which the reader must distinguish fact from fiction.

“Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long—long—long—many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—I dared not speak!”

Usher confesses that he has been aware of Madeline’s escape from the vault. Usher can hear the beating of her heart after she awakens in the coffin. Usher’s hypersensitivity, which was brought on by his illness, provides an explanation for his unlikely sensory abilities.