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The Fall Of The House Of Usher Incest Analysis

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Written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1839, The Fall of the House of Usher, is one of the most important gothic stories in the American Literature. The story shows the virtuosity of Poe in “the creation of a psychological state of terror, loneliness and wickedness of his characters” (Howarth), and also the excellence in the using of figurative speech to create parallelism between the characters and the rest of the elements in the story. The aim of this paper is to examine how the incest instead of keeping a bloodline intact, eventually destroys an entire family generating its complete disappearance. In The Fall of the House of Usher incest is explored in a very subtle way. Traditionally “incest has been done by Royal or aristocratic families in order …show more content…

As he was approaching the mansion he realizes that "there was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart" (FHU 3). The narrator manages to convey the feeling that Roderick is connected to the house, "brought upon the morale of his existence" (FHU 10). Poe creates an extreme parallelism with the house and Roderick, using as an example Roderick’s hair, "wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face" (FHU 8) and with the outside of the home “in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves “(FHU 6). Poe is concerned not only in describing the psychological effects suffered by the protagonists, but also the physical ones. The mansion is a very visual example of the degree of degradation suffered by Roderick. Eventually the house pushes people away, like it does incest. For centuries incest in the Usher family has been natural episode that has produced many of their relatives suffer from "a peculiar sensitivity temperament, through long ages" (FHU 5) due to a bad family decision in the way of living. “This kind of relationships went against the dogma of society” (Allison) and as a result has created "an atmosphere unique to themselves and their immediate vicinity which had no affinity with the air of heaven" (FHU

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