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Themes In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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''The Fall of the House of Usher'' is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It contains within it the poem "The Haunted Palace", which was "positioned appropriately in the middle to function as amise en abyme, a miniature of the story that contains it" and had earlier been published separately in the April 1839. (Hayes, 179) I decided to talk about ''The Fall of the House of Usher'' in my essay because it seemed interesting to me how the themes of madness, family, isolation and fear were melted together in the tragedy, gothic, short story genre. Therefore, the themes chosen by me to discuss in this essay are fear and madness. First of all, in this work everything is built in mournful manner beginning from the darkish autumn day in which the unnamed narrator arrives at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, to the tragic end of him and his house. On one hand, the description of the outdoor environment makes the reader think of an oppressive, burdensome and dark condition, with the description of the autumn day as it is introduced by the incipient phrase: "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens". (Poe, 3) According to Hayes, "The motionlessness …show more content…

More than that, they seem to gradually separate from each other, creating a contrast between normality – being represented by the narrator – and madness – being represented by Roderick Usher –, although they were close to each other when they were younger: "Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend". We observe that even though the narrator is terrified by his friend’s house, illness and madness nature, he comes closer and closer to be as fearful and paranoid as Roderick

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