Edgar Allan Poe - The Fall or The House of Usher

29/03/2015 18:36

The story is a narration of a man, whose name is never mentioned, who visited an old friend. He got a letter from Roderick Usher where he wanted the man to visit him and he described his situation so convincingly that he immediately set out on a journey to Usher´s Mansion. First when he got there he did not feel good about the place. It was the spooky place with an evil atmosphere. The whole building was not in a good condition. The man told about the Usher family as it had some mental issues running through all generations and that Roderick was a bit different since he knew him. However he was quiet surprised of his friend state when he saw him. On this very first day on the mansion he also met Roderick´s sister Madeline who suffered from an illness. The man did not see the sister again until she was dead. Meanwhile he spent some days on the mansion and tried to cheer up Roderick who thought that his senses were more sensible. Roderick played the guitar and sang a song that he made up and the man read him his favourite books but it did not help much to improve Roderick´s mood. The man suspected the house of it.

 

After a short time Madeline died and her brother decided to bury her in the house in a tomb. The man helped him and by doing this he noticed the resemblance between Madeline and Roderick and found out that they were twins. Then it was getting worse with Roderick and one night when they both could not sleep Roderick came to the man´s room rather out of himself. Around the house they saw from the window a blaze which the man considered as a common phenomenon, nothing to worry about. He calmed down Roderick by reading his favourite book called Mad Trist. He read about some noises that he actually started also to hear. He blamed his imagination at first. Roderick believed that the sounds came from the tomb and his sister was still alive and wanted to get out. Roderick then creamed that she was behind the door. Suddenly she got into the room stained with blood and attacked Roderick. The man run away and the entire house disappeared in the ground.

 

The horror story is a bit new topic for me. I have only read Stephen King´s books that is something I can´t even compare but what concerns the style King is for me an expert of really long sentences and Poe of using adjectives. There are so many negative adjectives in the whole text that I did not have any idea that they exist. Interesting was the choice of the sister´s name, Madeline. When you say it separately it sounds like Mad a line which could talk about the Usher family line. She seems to be a bit supernatural for the whole story, beginning with her strange entrance. At the end I questioned myself if it was the house to blame or just the bloodline. The whole story has very depressed effect caused by the descriptions of the place and excessive using unfavourable adjectives.

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