Short Story Club: The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe

[King Mob]

This second half of October we will be reading and discussing The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe.

[Virgil]

Ok, I'll try reading it this weekend.

Here's Lit Net's electronic version if you wish to read it on line: http://www.online-literature.com/poe/31/

[Lord Macbeth]

I read that a year or two ago, and, like nearly all of Poe's works...

I enjoyed it IMMENSELY.

Poe's Gothic atmosphere is, as usual, biriilantly conveyed through his trademark mastery of first person narration, but it is the possible implications--Freudian and Marxist readings abound in this piece--that really set it apart.

Brilliant story, even MORE brilliant overtones.

[Patrick_Bateman]

I bough an absolutely resplendent copy of Poe's complete works for less than a tenner
it really is a beautiful item

http://www.temp.sfbok.se/kat/img/52076.jpg

It's a sexy hardcover (but not like a Jilly Cooper hardback I mean proper hardback) and the pages are exquisite

I'll be reading the story today

[aliengirl]

I read it a long time ago. At that time I was in 8th grade and it sent a chill shiver down my spine back then. Now I laugh when I think about that. Well, I'll read it in a day or two.

[Virgil]

Let's look at that wonderful first sentence:


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.

Certainly there is the gothic atmosphere as someone above pointed out, but there is balance and rhythm and alliteration. I just love that sentence.

I love the sound of the name, "Usher." There has to be some significance to that choice. It's sort mysterious and (shhh!) something that shouldn't be said aloud. :wink5:

[dfloyd]

And that first sentence is brilliant. Poe was fascinated by the prospect of someone being entombed alive, and this occurs in more than one of his stories. The Cask of Amontillado doesn't have premature burial, but the character is walled up or immured in the wine cellar. This one is my second choice of Poe's tales.

I have a large folio of House of Usher published by the Limited Editions club in the 1980s. I'm glad I bought it back then because it now sells in the $400-$600 range. It is illustrated by Alice Neel who died of cancer just after finishing this project. The last illustration in the story is a rather skeletal portrait of Roderick Usher's sister. It is eerily presented on the last page. When asked were she got her idea for this portrait, the dying Ms Neel replied, "It's a self portrait."

As for Freud and Marx aphorisms abounding in the story, that is quite rediculous since they were not born yet.

[Virgil]

As for Freud and Marx aphorisms abounding in the story, that is quite rediculous since they were not born yet.
Marx was born, but there is no way Poe was intending to make a Marxian point or any economic point in this story. It is ridiculous.

I found the description of the room to be rather fascinating. Here:


The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellissed panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around ; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.
It continues the melancholy and gloom atmosphere that the narrator described from the outside of the house, but the narrator continues to make the windows erie. If you go to the story's first paragraph, the narrator mentions twice how the windows appear to be "vacant and "eye-like." To mention that twice in the very first paragraph does mean that Poe is using the windows to carry meaning. But here from the inside, the windows are exotic to say the least. The room is very high apparently, "excessively lofty," and "windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within." I assume what he's saying is that the bottom of the windows are higher up than the height of a person and that they run up to the ceiling from there. I have never seen anything quite like that in real life. I'm not sure what's on Poe's mind though with the windows. Any thoughts?

[Syd A]

Poe is my favorite author and poet, but I always thought that The Fall of the House of Usher is his most overrated story. There's nothing too sophisticated in this story, and the live burial theme has been done to death, and far better in The Black Cat.

[OrphanPip]

It continues the melancholy and gloom atmosphere that the narrator described from the outside of the house, but the narrator continues to make the windows erie. If you go to the story's first paragraph, the narrator mentions twice how the windows appear to be "vacant and "eye-like." To mention that twice in the very first paragraph does mean that Poe is using the windows to carry meaning. But here from the inside, the windows are exotic to say the least. The room is very high apparently, "excessively lofty," and "windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within." I assume what he's saying is that the bottom of the windows are higher up than the height of a person and that they run up to the ceiling from there. I have never seen anything quite like that in real life. I'm not sure what's on Poe's mind though with the windows. Any thoughts?

I'm going to have to reread the story, because it's been a while, but back in college I seem to remember there being a lot of debate about the reliability of the narrator. That is why psychoanalytical analysis of the story are so popular, it's not that people think Poe was writing from a Freudian mindset, but there is definitely a sense in the story, and much of Poe for that matter, that the setting reflects the mind of the narrator to some extent. Also, the house is pretty closely associated, I would say supernaturally, with the Usher family. The way the house evades description, and is something between living thing and inanimate object, definitely seems to reflect something of the Ushers' half-dead state as well.


Poe is my favorite author and poet, but I always thought that The Fall of the House of Usher is his most overrated story. There's nothing too sophisticated in this story, and the live burial theme has been done to death, and far better in The Black Cat.

There's no live burial in The Black Cat, and besides to reduce The Fall of the House of Usher to being about live burial is a bit reductive.

[dfloyd]

in about 1838. but it is highly unlikely that he was much of a revolutionist yet, and Poe probably never heard of him. As for the story itself, critics generally agree this is the best of Poe's work. And I agree with the critics. It's been awhile since I read the story so I don't know about the symbolism of the tall windows. But the narrator tells how Roderick considers himself and his sister to be an extension of the house so when the house of Usher falls, it is the falling of the edifice as well as Roderick and his sister. The two are direct descendants of previous Ushers with no other lines interceding so their are incestuous relationships abounding, like those of the Greek pharoahs from whom Cleopatra was descended. The two Uhers are not just twins, but identical twins. She is the brain with Roderick being the senses (touch, hearing, sight et al). That is why Roderick's senses become so acute after her purported death. And the two are so related to their manse that when the Ushers die, the manse, with its discernable crack or fissure, must self destruct. the narrator tells how Roderick had not left the manse for years. He and the House of Usher have become one. And there is no live burial. Madelline Usher was entombed.

[dfloyd]

in about 1838. but it is highly unlikely that he was much of a revolutionist yet, and Poe probably never heard of him. As for the story itself, critics generally agree this is the best of Poe's work. And I agree with the critics. It's been awhile since I read the story so I don't know about the symbolism of the tall windows. But the narrator tells how Roderick considers himself and his sister to be an extension of the house so when the house of Usher falls, it is the falling of the edifice as well as Roderick and his sister. The two are direct descendants of previous Ushers with no other lines interceding so their are incestuous relationships abounding, like those of the Greek pharoahs from whom Cleopatra was descended. The two Uhers are not just twins, but identical twins. She is the brain with Roderick being the senses (touch, hearing, sight et al). That is why Roderick's senses become so acute after her purported death. And the two are so related to their manse that when the Ushers die, the manse, with its discernable crack or fissure, must self destruct. The narrator tells how Roderick had not left the manse for years. He and the House of Usher have become one.

[Lord Macbeth]

Poe is my favorite author and poet, but I always thought that The Fall of the House of Usher is his most overrated story. There's nothing too sophisticated in this story, and the live burial theme has been done to death, and far better in The Black Cat.

What about the themes I mentioned?

I still think there are great Freudian and Marxist overtones, and the atmosphere alone...

[Virgil]

What about the themes I mentioned?

I still think there are great Freudian and Marxist overtones, and the atmosphere alone...

Well, point them out to me. I don't see them, especially Marx. You can make the argument that anything that's remotely psychological is Freudian (that's wrong by the way, but some people are under the delusion) but where is anything Marxist in here?

[Rores28]

I definitely do not see what all the noise is about with this story..... I read it once and I wasn't in a great mood so maybe that affected it.... but I didn't feel like the prose style was appropriate for the mood of the story. It was a little bloated (which I normally don't mind) but I thought it took away from the darkness of the story.

Also horror is my least favorite genre so that may also have something to do with it.

I'm hoping someone points out some interesting symbols or something in the story that can help me appreciate it.... but if this is the best of Poe I probably won't be reading too much more of him....

[Patrick_Bateman]

Although I like it I feel this is one of Poe's many works where he is far too poetic. It seems very verbose and bombastic to me at times which is infuriating because it's a great short story.

[Virgil]

Although I like it I feel this is one of Poe's many works where he is far too poetic. It seems very verbose and bombastic to me at times which is infuriating because it's a great short story.

I was going to mention how, though at times he rises to the poetic, stilted and awkward the narrator sounds. I assume it's done on purpose, though I can't think of why.