According to
Benjamin F. Fisher “the ‘Usher’ narrator’s
sojourn in the ‘house’ of Usher may symbolize a journey into depths of his own
self, where he confronts psycho-sexual-artistic elements that horrify him by
the far greater negative than positive possibilities they raise”. I
agree partially with him on this statement, so let me start by saying that many of
Poe’s stories explore the dark tunnels of the mind. This one is not an
exception.
Poe was a daring writer who, under a literary veil, revealed the emotions
and feelings that society might have judged and condemned. His poetical prose
dredges up profound feelings and thoughts that had to remain hidden to avoid
the inconvenience of their social consequences. Having said this, I will now
explain my perspective on “The Fall of the House of Usher”.
I believe the
house of Usher is the embodiment of Mr. Usher’s depressive state of mind. And what is a
depressive state of mind but the entrapment of the soul in a network of
dark thoughts and emotions? This dark web distorts the sufferer’s views. Yet falling
prey to this complex network requires a specific kind of substrate: a
combination of sensitivity and a profound understanding of reality (both
inner and outer realities). This is a kind of journey that Poe understood well.
Through this
story Poe paints the complex labyrinths of Mr. Usher’s moods, and the physical descriptions of the house are symbols of his mental experience. There is a
spiritual connection between the narrator and Mr. Usher. Neither of them can be rescued
from the sorrow of the atmosphere described by many critics as "claustrophobic".
The narrator
fathoms Mr. Usher’s emotional turmoil while he navigates the waters
of his own melancholy.
“We painted
and read together, or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations
of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy
admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more
bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from
which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all
objects of the moral and physical universe in one unceasing radiation of gloom.”
Roderick Usher had invited the narrator to his house
because there was a “mental disorder that oppressed him”. Roderick had an
earnest desire to see his childhood friend for he believed his visit might help
him to “alleviate his malady”. Even though Roderick considered him his personal
friend the narrator confessed that he did not know him well because of
Usher’s introverted nature. He explained this in this paragraph:
“Although, as
boys, we had been intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend.
His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that
his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar
sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works
of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet
unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies,
perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of
musical science.”
Each and every
description is memorable and vivid. Reading this story is almost like visiting
this Gothic house or dreaming of it because of the powerful images that his prose
evokes:
“There were many books and musical instruments scattered on the floor, but they failed to give any vitality to the scene.”
“There were many books and musical instruments scattered on the floor, but they failed to give any vitality to the scene.”
“The windows
were long, narrow and pointed, and so vast a distance from the black oaken
floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within.” All these simple details of
the house carve out a feeling of isolation and loneliness. Right from the first
paragraph we are thrown into an obscure landscape:
“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day
in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the
heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary
tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew
on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was – but,
with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded
my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that
half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment with which the mind usually
receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.”
In this
paragraph the narrator is clearly deprived of hope, another hallmark of Mr. Usher's mental condition.
The loss of Mr. Usher’s beloved twin sister Madeline may have been the trigger of his mood disorder. Madeline had been his sole companion for many years. Some critics suggest that there are innuendos regarding a possible love affair between Madeline and Roderick. There are those who claim that the image of their embrace under the moonlight at the end of the story hints at the union of their souls and the beginning of a new life together.
A sense of despair looms as the story progresses. We later learn more details about Mr. Usher’s situation and how his disorder wreaks havoc on his life:
A sense of despair looms as the story progresses. We later learn more details about Mr. Usher’s situation and how his disorder wreaks havoc on his life:
“And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed ,
an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my
friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were
neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried,
unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if
possible, a more ghastly hue – but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone
out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a
tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his
utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated
mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled
for the necessary courage.”
His descriptions help to deepen the
character and move the plot forward while they build suspense. The man is
struggling with his secrets. He is overwhelmed by the terror that guilt and uncertainty inflict upon him. He is very frightened and anxious. The narrator educes Mr. Usher is a slave to his emotions. He has lost control over them; thoughts of death abound:
“To an
anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. ‘I shall perish,’ said
he, ‘I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise,
shall I be lost. 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 soul.”
If you enjoyed this post, feel free to check my writing on The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
