Edgar Allan Poe

The Fall of the House of Usher

“What was it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered.”
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A dilapidated mansion in a barren countryside, under a gray, claustrophobic sky, enveloped in a mysterious gloom. Well, nobody does Gothic quite like Poe can.

The story is imbued with the most classic of Gothic elements: the wildly prominent feeling of uneasiness in the setting, in the characters, and in the situation. The end result is a nerve-twisting, uncomfortable tale with lots of substance.
My only problem with this story is that it loses in fluidity what it gains in atmosphere. The passages are so wordy and so heavily worked. It is not easy reading for sure,a dn can sometimes deduct from the tension-building too much. The ending is quite a banger, though, I must admit.

(Also just as a little note, I actually realized on my second read of this story that Mexican Gothic was perhaps fairly heavily influenced by this little Poe classic. I kept on getting mild flashbacks to that story while working through this one.)

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3.5/5

salem

“my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.”

Geoffrey Froggatt

** spoiler alert **
           “I will read, and you shall listen; — and so we will pass away this terrible night together."

I read Edgar Allen Poe a long time ago and never truly retained it, so I always told myself I’d reread his works once I was older. With the release of The Fall of the House of Usher adaptation on Netflix by Mike Flanagan, I found this to be the perfect time. The basic plot of The Fall of the House of Usher is that an unnamed narrator comes to visit his friend, Roderick Usher. While there, it seems that Roderick's unwell sister, Madeline, dies. The theme of insanity is prevalent in The Fall of the House of Usher. Throughout the story, Roderick Usher seems insane and out of touch with reality. And the narrator, who seems sane to begin with, takes on more of the characteristics of insanity as the story goes on. Roderick becomes even more insane, and in the end, both Roderick and Madeline are no more after the actual house crumbles and there are no more Ushers left to carry on the family name. The actual fall, or collapse, of the House of Usher, besides being the literal end of the Usher family's home, symbolizes the end of the Usher family line since there are no other surviving Ushers with the death of Roderick and Madeline. Unlike many short stories, this one does not have an easily discernable moral lesson. Many short stories have a moral, or a lesson about life, people, or society, that is easy to figure out. The Fall of the House of Usher does not have any moral lesson that is obvious. Virtually everything seems doubled in The Fall of the House of Usher: the title itself has a double meaning (where the ‘house’, or family of Usher falls, but the literal bricks-and-mortar structure also collapses), the house is reflected or doubled in the lake, Roderick and Madeline are twins or ‘doubles’ of a sort, and the plot of the “Mad Trist” mirrors or doubles Roderick’s own situation. The Fall of the House of Usher can also be analyzed as a deeply telling autobiographical portrait, in which Roderick Usher represents, or reflects, Poe himself. After all, Roderick Usher is a poet and artist, well-read (witness the assortment of books which he and the narrator read together), sensitive and indeed overly sensitive (to every sound, taste, sight, touch, and so on). Many critics have interpreted the story as, in part, an autobiographical portrait of Poe himself, although we should be wary, perhaps, of speculating too much about any parallels. For instance, it has sometimes been suggested that Roderick’s relationship with Madeline echoes Poe’s own relationship with his young wife (who was also his cousin), Virginia, who fell ill, as Madeline has. But Virginia did not fall ill until after Poe had written The Fall of the House of Usher. An interpretation which has more potential, then, is the idea that the ‘house of Usher’ is a symbol of the mind, and it is this analysis which has probably found the most favour with critics. Sigmund Freud would, over half a century after Poe was writing, do more than anyone else to delineate the structure of the conscious and unconscious mind, but he was not the first to suggest that our conscious minds might hide, or even repress, unconscious feelings, fears, neuroses, and desires. Overall, this felt like Poe showing the reader how easy it is to fall into the insanity of another, how the narrator easily fell into Roderick’s madness and how it became his own. I think this theme is just as strong today as it was when this was first published, especially in an era where people can fall into online communities and rabbit holes and radicalize each other, or even on a personal level, the way that we sometimes go mad when we fall in love with one another. I enjoyed reading this, and I’m looking forward to reading more of Poe’s work.

“I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results.”

Dimitris Papastergiou

Well, what can I say. Poe can create such a scary, creepy atmosphere that there's no need for anyone to be violently murdered or mysteriously disappeared in his stories. He can make your spine tingle with a single paragraph with just the way he writes. 

This story, is about a man going to see his ill friend in a house that's too... alive, dare I say. And then creepy stuff happen all over the place. Every single description of the house is hands down the best description of any haunted house you'll read in your life. Ever. None can describe as dark and gritty as Poe. Or... oh well, if anyone can, recommend me some stuff to read and I'll think about it. 

Gothic atmosphere and darkness everywhere. Now I just need to read more Poe stories. Good thing I haven't read everything by him yet.

Mahdis Riazikhah

run on sentences, writing es difficult to follow at times.

Mabel Palomera

Rudyard Kipling

"Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!" A classic story from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, adapted and illustrated by award-winning artist Jerry Pinkney, this is the tale of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, a fearless young mongoose. Soon after a flood washes Rikki into the garden of an English family, he comes face-to-face with Nag and Nagaina, two giant cobras. The snakes are willing to attack Rikki, and even the human family who lives there, to claim the garden and house for themselves. But they do not count on the heart and pride of the brave little mongoose.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

Missy Zuber 

For some reason I thought the cobras killed Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

aaliyah

Sophia De La Garza

Read for my lit class. Not my favorite Poe short story, but still set the mood for the fall. 
Rating:: 3 out of 5 stars.

Maribel González

Una historia oscura, que me ha intrigado a pesar de lo breve y me ha dejado con ganas de conocer más a Poe.

Ren Christina

Very descriptive. Also my first time reading Poe, so it was quite exciting. Look forward to reading more of his writing in the future.

Анастасия Розова

*Read for class.

2.25/5

The short story itself was alright, but the sentences of Poe, JFC. The length of them was needlessly enormous, and since English is not my native language, it was pretty difficult not to loose train of though.

Overall, nothing too genius. Just an ordinary mystical story. Maybe it's due to the fact that such a genre is not new to me. Or maybe it's the writing style that threw me off.

I also had conflicted feelings about Poe's biography and the fact that it was hinted that his twin-sister is his wife/lover. Ugh.

Raven Hutchinson

Cass Paul

Nick

Kerry McHugh West

Sean Bannen

Big pam

A truly spine-tingling story, told in Edgar Allan Poe's unmistakable atmospheric style. The Fall of the House of Usher describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. A nameless narrator is summoned to the home of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, who is plagued with crippling anxiety and believes his house is sentient. When his sister Madeline--prone to death-like trances--eventually dies, Roderick asks the narrator to help entomb her in the family vault. Edgar Allan Poe was a master of short fiction, and this is frequently cited as the crown jewel of his prose writing.

The Fall of the House of Usher

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