The Theme Of Madness In Poe's The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher “The Fall of The House of Usher” is a dreary tale of a descent into madness, the unnamed narrator goes into detail of just how gloomy the house truly is. The introduction to “The Fall of The House of Usher” sets up a very gothic mood, Edgar Allen Poe does this by using dark descriptive words. “The theme of The Fall of The House of Usher” is a descent into madness as the usher house was once lively and is now dead in a sense. When the narrator arrives at the property of the usher house he is taken aback by how gruesome the state of the home is. When first introduced to Roderick Usher the narrator is aghast at what he became using things like “Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in …show more content…
Roderick tells the narrator that Lady Madeline is also ill like himself, we are told that no doctor understands her illness the narrator says that her illness is “a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical” from this we can tell that she won't get better. As the story continues the narrator and Roderick pass the time by reading together and painting together, one painting, in particular, impresses the narrator immensely a dark tunnel with no apparent end or a vault with no opening, this is used as foreshadowing for when Lady Madeline is “dead” and they bury her alive. Roderick comes to the narrator while he was reading to tell him of Lady Madeline’s “passing”, Roderick explains to the narrator that he wishes to preserve her body. The narrator perturbed by Roderick's feelings obliges, they carry her coffined body down to an underground vault as foreshadowed by Roderick’s painting. Soon after they bury her the narrator begins to hear noises that he cannot place, Roderick comes to his door and says "Have you not seen it?," showing that he has been hearing these noises for …show more content…
The narrator refuses to let his childhood friend stare out into the void of the storm, he shuts the window and pulls out a book “Mad Trist” by Sir Launcelot Canning. The book opens and the narrator starts to read out loud to Roderick he reads a part where the hero kills a dragon and lets out "a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing," at that same moment he hears a bizarre screaming sound which Roderick reveals is Lady Madeline. Roderick at this moment appears to be horror-stricken he exclaims that she is at the door, not even a moment after the antique doors busted open to reveal a very angry Lady Madeline. She flew at her brother vigorously taking him to the floor wither attacks, in fear the narrator flees the House of Usher. As the narrator turned to look back upon the house in the blood moon and watched the entire house split in half and get swallowed by the muddy