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Doubling In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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Insanity- a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world. Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates this idea throughout many of his writings. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a Gothic literature piece about insest and madness between twins, Madeline and Roderick Usher and is best explained through the theories of “The Uncanny” which pertain to using objects either in two or a mere reflection to create different interpretations of what they could mean. Edgar Allan Poe incorporates “The Uncanny” in an immaculate way by establishing its predominance through his definitive use of doubling within his characterization and symbolism.
To begin with, the use of doubling has an outstanding effective in Poe’s writing because of his tendency in incorporating insanity with love. In this story, two twins, Madeline and Roderick Usher live together in a broken down, house like castle. It is reasonable to say they love each other as they are siblings but knowing Poe’s …show more content…

One of the main symbols within this piece is the tarn as it is used to reflect the broken down house Madeline and Roderick Usher live in. This house has a very prominent feature, it has a huge fissure on the side making the structure weak. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” Usher states, “. . . with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium - - the bitter lapse into everyday life-hideous dropping off of the veil.” I have come to the conclusion that the house is a representation of Roderick Usher himself. As there is a gap between Usher and reality as he suffers from a hyposensitivity to everything. Him being alone mentally since his sister suffers from cataleptical has driven him to insanity. As previously stated when Madeline fell upon Roderick and he died, it caused the house to fall

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