Analysis
The Fall of the House of Usher possesses the quintessential -features of the Gothic tale: a haunted house, dreary landscape, mysterious sickness, and doubled personality. For all its easily identifiable Gothic elements, however, part of the terror of this story is its vagueness. We cannot say for sure where in the world or exactly when the story takes place. Instead of standard narrative markers of place and time, Poe uses traditional Gothic elements such as inclement weather and a barren landscape. We are alone with the narrator in this haunted space, and neither we nor the -narrator know why. Although he is Rodericks most intimate boyhood friend, the narrator apparently does not know much about himlike the basic fact that Roderick has a twin sister. Poe asks us to question the reasons both for Rodericks decision to contact the narrator in this time of need and the bizarre tenacity of narrators response. While Poe provides the recognizable building blocks of the Gothic tale, he contrasts this standard form with a plot that is inexplicable, sudden, and full of unexpected disruptions. The story begins without complete explanation of the narrators motives for arriving at the house of Usher, and this ambiguity sets the tone for a plot that continually blurs the real and the fantastic.
Poe creates a sensation of claustrophobia in this story. The narrator is mysteriously trapped by the lure of Rodericks attraction, and he cannot escape until the house of Usher collapses completely. Characters cannot move and act freely in the house because of its structure, so it assumes a monstrous character of its ownthe Gothic mastermind that controls the fate of its inhabitants. Poe, creates confusion between the living things and inanimate objects by doubling the physical house of Usher with the genetic family line of the Usher family, which he refers to as the house of Usher. Poe employs the word house metaphorically, but he also describes a real house. Not only does the narrator get trapped inside the mansion, but we learn also that this confinement describes the biological fate of the Usher family. The family has no enduring branches, so all genetic transmission has occurred incestuously within the domain of the house. The peasantry confuses the mansion with the family because the physical structure has effectively dictated the genetic patterns of the family.
The claustrophobia of the mansion affects the relations among characters. For example, the narrator realizes late in the game that Roderick and Madeline are twins, and this realization occurs as the two men prepare to entomb Madeline. The cramped and confined setting of the burial tomb metaphorically spreads to the features of the characters. Because the twins are so similar, they cannot develop as free individuals. Madeline is buried before she has actually died because her similarity to Roderick is like a coffin that holds her identity. Madeline also suffers from problems typical for women in -nineteenth--century literature. She invests all of her identity in her body, whereas Roderick possesses the powers of intellect. In spite of this disadvantage, Madeline possesses the power in the story, almost superhuman at times, as when she breaks out of her tomb. She thus counteracts Rodericks weak, nervous, and immobile disposition. Some scholars have argued that Madeline does not even exist, reducing her to a shared figment Rodericks and the narrators imaginations. But Madeline proves central to the symmetrical and claustrophobic logic of the tale. Madeline stifles Roderick by preventing him from seeing himself as essentially different from her. She completes this attack when she kills him at the end of the story.
Doubling spreads throughout the story. The tale highlights the Gothic feature of the doppelganger, or character double, and portrays doubling in inanimate structures and literary forms. The narrator, for example, first witnesses the mansion as a reflection in the tarn, or shallow pool, that abuts the front of the house. The mirror image in the tarn doubles the house, but upside downan inversely symmetrical relationship that also characterizes the relationship between Roderick and Madeline.
The story features numerous allusions to other works of literature, including the poems The Haunted Palace and Mad Trist by Sir Launcelot Canning. Poe composed them himself and then fictitiously attributed them to other sources. Both poems parallel and thus predict the plot line of The Fall of the House of Usher. Mad Trist, which is about the forceful entrance of Ethelred into the dwelling of a hermit, mirrors the simultaneous escape of Madeline from her tomb. Mad Trist spookily crosses literary borders, as though Rodericks obsession with these poems ushers their narratives into his own domain and brings them to life.
The crossing of borders pertains vitally to the Gothic horror of the tale. We know from Poes experience in the magazine industry that he was obsessed with codes and word games, and this story amplifies his obsessive interest in naming. Usher refers not only to the mansion and the family, but also to the act of crossing a -threshold that brings the narrator into the perverse world of Roderick and Madeline. Rodericks letter ushers the narrator into a world he does not know, and the presence of this outsider might be the factor that destroys the house. The narrator is the lone exception to the Ushers fear of outsiders, a fear that accentuates the claustrophobic nature of the tale. By undermining this fear of the outside, the narrator unwittingly brings down the whole structure. A similar, though strangely playful crossing of a boundary transpires both in Mad Trist and during the climactic burial escape, when Madeline breaks out from death to meet her mad brother in a tryst, or meeting, of death. Poe thus buries, in the fictitious gravity of a medieval romance, the puns that garnered him popularity in Americas magazines.
The main theme of Snowbound is that no-matter what happens, family will be there to help and comfort. This theme is demonstrated widely throughout the poem and even more so in the last stanza of this excerpt. Another, less prominent, theme of Snowbound is the meaning and involvement of God in the lives of people.
The first stanza describes the moment before the storm. A chill no coat, however stout, Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, This stanza begins to set up the obstacle that the family must overcome. When Emerson describes the storm as less than treat and then goes on about the intense cold it brings he also is describing God. God is caring and loving but he is also vengeful and just.
The second stanza is about the family preparing for the storm. Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, suggests that they were perfectly calm together, everyone knew what to do and they did it.
The third stanza is describing the snowstorm beginning; Unwarmed by any sunset light The gray day darkened into night
The forth stanza tells of how the outside looked after two straight days of snow; And, when the second morning shone, We looked upon a world unknown,
The fifth stanza is about the family continuing on with there chores after the storm. Despite all that has happened the family still continues on, quite happily as a matter of fact; Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy?) This stanza also shows how God is good because even after the snowstorm the animals are all still alive.
The sixth stanza describes their solitude and isolation from the outside world.
Beyond the circle of our hearth
No welcome sound of toil or mirth
Unbound the spell, and testified
Of human life and thought outside
The seventh stanza is when the family makes a fire; We watched the first red blaze appear. Surrounded by snow in all directions, they make a fire witch symbolizes hope.
The eighth stanza is describing the bitter cold of the outside; Most fitting that unwarming light, Which only seemed whereer it fell To make the coldness visible
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