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The Horror of the Inexpressible: Misophonia in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick Usher is haunted by an
unnamed mental illness. The story concerns the narrator’s recollection of events that followed a
pleading letter from his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, who is suffering from a severe
disorder of the mind and asks the narrator to visit the house. Usher is found in a state of extreme
exhaustion, anxiety, and agitation with his ill sister in the crumbling family mansion. After the
sister is believed to have passed, she is buried in a vault deep below the house, and the narrator
begins to feel the effects of not only the gloom of the mansion but of the mental disorder that
Roderick suffers from. Frantic, Usher confesses that they have buried his sister alive and she
returns to smother him. The narrator flees the house and turns back to see the entire structure
collapse. The narrator attempts to describe Usher’s severe anxiety but can merely say that he
suffers an “intolerable agitation of the soul…[an] unnerved, pitiable condition” (Poe 115). This
“pitiable condition” is without a name, and the “intolerable agitation of the soul” haunts and
ultimately destroys Roderick. The horror of the story, one might argue, has as much to do with
the inability of the narrator to express the mental illness that Roderick is suffering from, an
illness, ironically, that has not, until recently, been given a name--Misophonia. After years of
research on the neurological condition, Misophonia was officially labeled in 2006 to mean
“hatred of sound.” Misophonia is a “phantom sensation” that is brought on by a hyper-sensitivity
to specific sounds resulting in “automatic reactions of various kinds” (Møller 26). When the
trigger sounds are present, the sufferer is immersed in severe anxiety, racing violent thoughts,
rage, and fear. Over time, immense amounts of anxiety, fear, and isolation cloud the sufferer
until his or her life is consumed by the mental agitation. Early signs and symptoms of the
disorder begin in a person’s childhood—around the age of seven or eight (Veale). The symptoms
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of rage, aggression, and anxiety are most intense in regard to the sufferer’s loved ones, whether it
is a lover, a family member, or in Roderick’s case, both.
Roderick’s hypersensitivity plagues his mind and subjects him to a life of anxiety,
exhaustion, and angst-ridden isolation. Without being able to name his severe agitation and
mental suffering, Roderick’s horror is amplified, demonstrating the fear we have of the
unknown. A productive critical approach to Poe’s story is to analyze it through a Lacanian lens.
Roderick, unable to understand his illness because there is no language to describe it, attempts to
find solace and unity in creative outlets, but music and art fail to serve as a proper objet petit a,
or a substitution for the absence of language and repressed desire for expression (Tyson).
Looking at the story with an assumed diagnosis of Misophonia, the reader can decipher Usher’s
mysterious ailment and begin to understand his repression. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,”
Poe fixates on the horror of the inexpressible; Usher represses a sense of lack due to his inability
to find the language to express the unnamed horror that is now known as Misophonia.
The foundation of Roderick’s agitation is sound sensitivity and the severe anxiety and
exhaustion that are by-products of Misophonia. Before entering the house, the narrator reflects:
“as boys…[Roderick’s] reserve had been always excessive and habitual” (Poe 110). From an
early age, Roderick was experiencing symptoms of the disorder because he isolated himself even
then. The narrator also recalls that the mental ailment of his friend is genetic by saying that the
“consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son” has occurred for centuries (Poe 111).
Misophonia emerges at a young age and recent research proves it to be genetic (Veale). Upon
entering the house, he finds Roderick in a disordered, exhausted state that matches the symptoms
of Misophonia almost perfectly. The narrator attempts to explain his ailment as follows: “He
suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses…there were but peculiar sounds, and these
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from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror” (Poe 115). The horror that
Roderick experiences is elevated because the affliction that oppresses him is unnamed and
therefore inexpressible; to comprehend his deepening madness, the reader must apply Lacan’s
theory to the words and actions of Usher.
Without a name for the disorder, Roderick is crushed beneath the weight of its burden
and the frustration of the lack of language to express his condition; in turn, he represses his angst
which only deepens his suffering. As Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory states, “the use of
language in general…implies a loss, a lack” (Tyson 29). The inability to find the “correct” words
to express his fears, desires, and even the disorder itself results in an “absence” in the character
of Roderick Usher. Applying Lacan’s theory, the reader can gain quite a bit of insight from
Usher’s strained attempts to speak of his ailment. He says,
I must perish in this deplorable folly…I dread the events of the future, not in themselves,
but in their results…I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which
may operate upon this intolerable agitation of the soul…In this unnerved, in this pitiable,
condition I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and
reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR. (Poe 115)
Exhaustion, anxiety, and fear have clearly consumed Roderick and he can only express so much
of his agitation in words. The narrator is correct when he refers to Usher as a “bounden slave;”
he is a slave not only to his disordered mind and his isolation, but to the lack of expression for
his innermost troubles, and is forced to believe that he has gone insane and must die (Poe 115).
The reader should observe this lack of expression again when Roderick’s twin sister passes
through the chamber but leaves abruptly. The narrator looks to Usher for a reaction “but he had
buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanes had
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overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears” (Poe 116).
Taking into account his extraordinary love for his sister, the reader can see the disorder manifest
itself even deeper into the mind of Roderick; for sufferers of Misophonia, the presence and
actions of loved ones causes the most anguish. Therefore, Roderick cannot find words to express
heart-wrenching sorrow mingled with fear that he experiences at the sight of his twin lover. After
the first encounter with Usher, the reader should observe the severe repression of emotion due to
the frustration with language and his acceptance of madness.
Consumed with repressed grief, anguish, and anxiety and exhausted by incessant
agitation, Roderick turns to creative outlets such as music and art. Furthering Lacan’s theory, the
reader can observe Roderick’s failed attempts at creative expression since verbal expression is
simply not possible when the disorder is unnamed. Usher attempts to find a temporary objet petit
a in music and art, but his desire for expression (even creatively) is unattainable. The narrator,
upon his first scan of the chamber, is quick to point out the fact that “many books and musical
instruments lay scattered about but failed to give any vitality to the scene” (Poe 113). Roderick is
clearly surrounding himself with creative outlets in hopes of releasing some of his inexpressible
anguish and finding symbolic unity in his desperate state of absence. By having the instruments
fail to “give any vitality to the scene,” Poe wants the reader to feel the absence that is created by
Usher’s inability to express his disorder and the creative outlets’ failure to supplement the lack or
serve as a proper objet petit a. No matter the lengths Roderick goes to for relief, the narrator
perceives “the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness” (Poe 116). Though
the creative outlets do not alleviate Roderick’s suffering, Poe uses art to try and express the
condition and the severe repression to the reader. In particular, Poe draws attention to a certain
image in one of Usher’s paintings. The narrator is careful to point out that it can “be shadowed
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forth, although feebly, in words” (Poe 117). Roderick’s painting depicts “the interior of…a vault
or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device…this excavation lay
at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No out let was observed in any portion of
its vast extent” (Poe 117). The description of the painting is Poe’s attempt to express the
isolation and deep disturbance surrounding the unnamed condition of Usher. The vault also
represents the deep repression of the emotions that Roderick cannot express. His frustration only
increases his agitation and carves the vault of repression even deeper into his tortured mind.
After acknowledging the primary symptoms of Misophonia and the repression of emotion in
Roderick, one can see the disorder grow from a mere sound sensitivity to an all-encompassing
force of destruction.
Poe has Roderick bury his sister alive in order to express the hideously unimaginable side
of Misophonia: the uncontrollable progression of violent thought. Though most sufferers of
Misophonia never physically commit acts of violence, the immediate ascension of the desire of
violent action and unbridled rage leaves the person agitated and exhausted due to the repression
of such strong emotions. Roderick’s repression of his frustration with the lack of language leads
him to physically repress his beloved sister into the vault. Poe wants readers to acknowledge that
along with burying his sister alive, Roderick is re-creating the act of repressing emotions. The
vault, in a sense, is the deepest part of the house and is therefore the deepest area of his mind.
Before Usher’s confession, the narrator makes note of his anxious demeanor:
…I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped
upon his breast—yet I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of
the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance
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with this idea—for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform
sway. (Poe 126)
Here, Roderick is suffering an immeasurable amount of agitation, anxiety, and anguish. He is not
only reflecting the burial of his sister, but he is traumatized by the sounds from the vault and is
nearing nervous collapse. With racing thoughts and mounting anxiety consuming him, Roderick
pours out the following confession:
Not hear it?—yes I hear it, and have heard it. Long—long—long—many minutes, many
hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I
am!—I dared not—I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! (Poe 127)
The description of the sounds in this passage is not unfamiliar to a sufferer of Misophonia.
Roderick has been transfixed, obsessed, and driven mad by the sounds that he has heard
incessantly for days. He acted on the violent thoughts that Misophonia provided him with and at
this point he fully embodies the horror of the disorder. The reappearance of Usher’s sister from
the tomb represents the inability to escape the repressed emotions. Fear of madness, the absence
of language, and the mounting anguish return in the form of his buried sister and literally
smother Usher to death.
Language, in Lacan’s theory, is structured like the unconscious, and is therefore
represented by the House of Usher itself (Tyson). The portrayal of the symptoms of the disorder
and its effects, the unfathomable act of violence, and the failed attempts at creative expression
are all kept inside the daunting mansion, therefore representing the most devastating horror of
the story: that the affliction of the mind is inescapable and inexpressible. The crumbling house
must collapse on the remaining Usher to represent the mental devastation that results from the
failed attempt to reach symbolic unity and the inability to express the mental affliction.
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Work Cited
Møller, Aage R. "Misophonia, Phonophobia, And 'Exploding Head' Syndrome." Textbook of
tinnitus. 25-27. New York, NY US: Springer Science + Business Media, 2011.
PsycINFO. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.
Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today. 2nd ed. Routledge: New York, 2006. Print.
Veale, David. “A Compelling Desire for Deafness.” Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education.
11.3 (2006): 169-372. PsycINFO. Web. 25 Oct 2012.