Poe: “The Fall of the House of
Usher”
 Exposition
 The narrator responds to an urgent, vague
emotional appeal
 Rising Action



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Madeline = ghostlike
Madeline’s worsening illness
Madeline = Usher’s twin (new twist in the plot)
Noises in “Mad Trist” echo sounds in the house
Usher Plot
 Climax
 “We have put her living in the tomb!”
 Madeline (or guilt, loss, anxiety) claim
Roderick

 Falling Action
 Narrator’s flight
Usher Plot continued
 Resolution (denouement)
 Usher’s fate (death) attached to sister
 House’s fate attached to twins
 Literally and figuratively the house of Usher
dies – they are the only offspring
User key ideas
 Conflict
 Struggle to remain sane when all of the senses
distort reality (reason)
 Narrator and / or Madeline may be an alter ego

 Autobiography?
 Twin / first cousin
 Psychoanalytical (internal conflict: superego /
conscience = guilt)
Key ideas Usher continued
 Curse = Incest (some critics claim)
 Madeline’s malady = pregnancy (Roderick’s child)
 Family tomb (echo of “womb”)
 Poe married 13 – year old cousin
 Curse = TB or consumption (Poe’s curse)
 Gothic = Madeline = Vampire
 Allegory (literal + symbolic meaning)
 House = tortured mind
 House has “eyes” + “fissure” (shattering) - mind
Usher Key ideas / Romance
 Ambiguity (more than one meaning)
 Psychological or supernatural
 Madness (insanity) vs. ghost story

 Romantic Ideas:
 Self - madness
 Supernatural / Gothic (setting + ghost story)
 Past - unspecified
Eight Page Book
 Title Page
 Setting – when(clock, calendar, era) and
where
 Characters – Protagonist, antagonist
 Plot (exposition / rising action / crisis)
 Plot (exposition / rising action / crisis)
 Climax – highest tension
 Conflict (force working against protagonist)
 Resolution / dénouement