LANGUAGE IN INDIA

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
Arezou Pashapour

ABOUT THE AUTHOR - Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809, the second son of David Poe, an actor, and his actress wife, Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to New York City, where both parents pursued sporadic acting jobs. Eventually David Poe abandoned his wife, Edgar, and a daughter Rosalie, born in 1810. Edgar's older brother, William Henry, was living with the Poe grandparents in Baltimore. To support her children, Elizabeth accepted acting parts in Norfolk, Charleston, and eventually in Richmond, where her health rapidly declined. She died of tuberculosis in December 1811. Edgar and Rosalie were taken in by separate affluent Richmond families, Rosalie by the William McKenzies, and Edgar by the John Allans. Poe was never officially adopted into the family but took Allan as his middle name. Critics and biographers generally agree that the traumatic events of Poe's early life influenced his personality and his writing.

THE NOVEL - THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is one of Poe's most popular short stories. Moreover, analyzing this story provides a basis for understanding Poe's gothicism and his literary theories. As in all of Poe's short stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher" concentrates on a "single effect"-in this case, the degeneration and decay of the Usher house and family. In the story's opening, for example, the narrator comments upon the "insufferable gloom" that pervades his being as he notices the "few rank sedges," the "white trunks of decayed trees," the unruffled luster of the "black and lurid tarn," and the house's vacant "eye-like windows." Once inside, the details increase: the "antique and tattered" furniture and the other furnishings that "failed to give any vitality to the scene."

In addition, the narrator emphasizes Roderick Usher's wildly fluctuating physical and mental states and Madeline Usher's "settled apathy" and gradual wasting away. Not only do these details highlight the mystery on which the tale develops, but they also foreshadow the story's denouement when Roderick, Madeline, and the dark house itself all crash into the dark waters of the tarn. Indeed, with its unity of character, setting, tone, and action, "The Fall of the House of Usher" epitomizes Poe's literary skills and techniques.

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Arezou Pashapour

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