The Fall of the

House of Usher
Edgar Allan Poe
1839

The Fall of the House of

Usher
The
The
The
The

gothic context of the tale

doubling motif of the tale
function of setting in the tale
structural unity of the tale

The Gothic literary

tradition
Begun in eighteenth century England
Novelists
Horace Walpole
Ann Radcliffe
Matthew Monk Lewis

Popular form in British literary journals

Imported into American short story - 19th
century
Key ingredient was sensationalism

Gothic Architecture in
America
Started in US about
1840
Steeply pitched roofs
Pointed arch
windows
Elaborate trim
around roof edges
High dormers
Lancet windows

 Poes house of
Usher looks
more like a
medieval castle or
English cathedral
in Gothic style

 The house might

look something
like this (from a
photograph by
Simon Marsden in
his Visions of Poe)

Elements of Gothic Writing

Emphasis on setting
Exterior: landscape
Interior: houses

Castle-like architecture
Characters are brooding, secretive
Buried family secrets
Long history of family tied to place

The Doubling Motif

In literary criticism, this is called a
doppelganger, from the German
for double-goer
Examples are:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis
Stevenson)
The Secret Sharer (Joseph Conrad)

What function does the

doppelganger motif serve?
Represents the dual nature of man
In Poe, one side of man is reason, or
the mind
The other is emotion, or the body

Roderick and Madeleine are

genetically twins, but
psychologically they are also
doubles.

Who Represents What?

Roderick

An artist figure (509)

Nervous agitation (509)
Lives in dark upstairs apartment (511)
Cadaverous complexion (511)
want of moral energy (511)
excessive nervous agitation (51112)

 Rodericks mental condition is affected by

his environment
He was enchanted by certain superstitious
impressions in regard to the dwelling which
he tenanted . . . An effect which the
physique of the gray walls and turrets, and
of the dim tarn into which they all looked
down, had, at length, brought about upon
the morale of his existence. (512)

 Here, physique refers to something

physical
And morale refers to something mental
Roderick is all mind in a weak body
He represents in one way the life of the
isolated artist
Paintings
Reading
Guitar playing

 Madeleine
Illness has debilitated her
All descriptions focus on the body
gradual wasting away of the person (513)
Roderick and the narrator screw down the lid of
her coffin (518)
She returns from the tomb to reclaim her twin
brother, her double
the huge antique panelsthrew back (521)
She fell heavily inward uponher brother and
bore him to the floor a corpse

What is Poes point?

Poe addresses the dual and
conflicted nature of the Self
Mind and body are at war with each
other in each of us
We try to repress one side and live
without it
But we cannot achieve a harmonious
existence in this way

The Function of Setting Exterior

The house of Usher has two
meanings
1. The physical dwelling
2. The family line, or lineage
the entire family lay in the direct line of
descent

 The house is also a type of character

in the story
Like the family, it is of an excessive
antiquity (510)
The landscape is overgrown and ragged
On the front down the middle is a
barely perceptible fissure going in a
zigzag direction (510)

Interior Setting
Gothic architecture (511)

windows were long, narrow and pointed

feeble gleams of encrimsoned light
dark draperies
atmosphere of sorrow

Roderick lives upstairs (mind)

Madeleine is entombed below ground
(body)

Structure and Unity

Poe creates texts within texts
1. The Haunted Palace (poem) reflects
the Usher family life in the house (515)
2. The Mad Trist (story) parallels
Madeleines return from the grave
3. The storm outside is analogous to the
turmoil inside the characters in the
house
4. The book titles in Rodericks library are
symbolic of the themes of the story

Rodericks Library
the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of
Jean DIndagine
the Directorium Inquisitorum
old African Satyrs, over which
Usher would sit dreaming for
hours (516-17)

Poes Theory of Literary

Unity
Poe earned his living as a magazinist,
not a fiction writer.
He was an editor and reviewer for many
major magazines.
Poe wrote a great deal of literary criticism,
literary theory, and book reviews.
His theory of literary unity was articulated
in a review of Hawthornes collection of
stories, Twice-Told Tales in 1842

 An author should conceive, with deliberate

care, a certain unique or single effect to be
wrought out, [and] then invent such events
as may best aid him in establishing this
preconceived effect.
In the whole composition there should be no
word written, of which the tendency, direct or
indirect, is not to the one pre-established
design.

Unity in Fall of the House

of Usher
First and last paragraphs are mirror
images of each other, creating
symmetry
The texts-within-text reinforce the
central theme
The house itself symbolizes the split
in the family
The construction of the house reflects
a perfect adaptation of parts (510)