The+Fall+of+the+House+of+Usher

[|The Fall of the House of Usher] By Edgar Allen Poe pg. 308

The story begins when the narrator recives a letter from Roderick Usher, who is suffering from an illness, and would like to see his "only personal friend". The narrator then feels it is his duty to go and see Usher. He gets on his and travels to Usher's house. From the ouside the house is very dark, scay and unwelcoming. Roderick was not alone in the house, he lived with his twin sister Madeline who oddly enough suffered from the same disease. It was that very night that Madeline died. The narator tried to distract him by talking, painting, and reading. It was a few days later that Roderick decided he would like to entomb her body in the house's dungeon instead of burying her. One night the narrator could not sleep so Roderick and the narrator began reading a novel. They began hearing the same noises in the house that were in the novel. It was then that Roderick told the narrator Madeline had been buried alive. He then saw Madeline and headed for the door. As he ran away he saw the house disappear.



Poe Uses many techniques to get across his message of fearing death.
 * As the narrator describes the house, it is alluding to how Usher is breaking down, both physically and internally due to his illness.
 * Uses amny similes and metaphors to express Usher's fears of death. Ex:
 * I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow
 * The more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if //an inherent positive quality//, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom.
 * When the House disappears at the end, it seems to be as if the house, Usher, and his sister all shared one commmon soul that wouldn't die one by one.

At the end it seems as if Poe is pointing at how death is always near and is sensed when close. Nothing is able to escape death and it comes around for everyone not matter the circumstance. The only certain thing in life is death so life should be lived to the max. Everyone feels the need to feel loved before the time comes to pass on to the next life and that is why Usher wants his only true friend to visit him on his last days on earth. He's not ready to go on without having seen at elast one person that truely cares about him. Usher has completly made his own world secluded from the real world which only shows his fear towards death.

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