By Nick Carroll

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Pryor High Students: If you plagiarize this, you will be caught. Use as a resource ONLY!

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" evokes a feeling of melancholy and dread upon the reader through the combined effects of the dreary environment, the insanity of the Roderick and Madeline Usher, the progressive decay of the house of Usher, and the mortifying realization that the power of intense fear can drive a person to commit illogical decisions and lose touch with reality. Each of the elements are cleverly woven together in order to achieve the effect of creating a dark and foreboding atmosphere for the reader.

The theme of the story is that intense fear can cause such great anxiety in a person that he will do irrational things and lose contact with his sanity. Roderick Usher, the friend of the narrator, believes that the house of Usher dictates his fate and is always conspiring against him. Usher sees the house doing to his sister what he believes it is doing to him, which fills him with great anxiety and despair. He becomes so agitated that when Madeline becomes catatonic, he tells the narrator that she has expired and seals her alive inside of a vault in the house. Obviously no sane person would do this to a sibling whom he loves; however, the combination of intense fear and an unstable mind lead Roderick to do the terrible deed.

The story is set in a place of "insufferable gloom" that "sicken[ed] the heart" and ate away at the soul. As the narrator approaches the house, he experiences a dreary and oppressive atmosphere which makes the reader dread his being in such a bleak place. The dreary setting does nothing but amplify the unstable mental states of the already ill Roderick. Later on in the story the narrator himself even starts to pace around from the nervousness that the dismal surroundings evoke. In fact, the reader himself can almost feel the tension and depressive aura emanating from the house.

The character's themselves do nothing to cheer the reader in anyway; they do quite the opposite as a matter of fact. The narrator himself depicts everything as ghastly and dismal, causing the reader to feel as he does, which is, of course, a feeling of great despair. The disturbed Roderick Usher makes the reader weary of coming events in the story. His insanity and nervous behavior cause the reader to be suspicious of Usher and the horrible aura that seems to lurk about him. Madeline gives the same foreboding feeling at first that Roderick did but with a little bit less intensity. Later on in the story after she digs herself out of the grave, however, the reader does not feel especially warm or fuzzy inside at her reappearance.

The erosion of both the physical house of Usher and the people of the house Usher is what the story is really all about. As the physical house of Usher crumbles, so do the family members in turn. The house, as well as Madeline and Roderick, still manage to survive, even though they are wearing away inside like the individual stones that form the house's structure. As we see Roderick Usher crumbling we can sense that an impending doom is descending upon the entire household, inspiring a feeling of despair in the reader.

The strange plot, disturbed characters, the dreary setting, and realization of how fear can drive one insane are intertwined for one main effect. Poe has cleverly merged these literary elements together within "The House of Usher" for the purpose of arousing dark and gloomy emotions within his audience of readers.