I would just like to know what people think about the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher?". Thank you for all your time and support. JEnn

-- Anonymous, March 12, 2000

Answers

Edgar Allan Poe in this story wants to convey a message to the reader that Fear is the Enemy of Man. Mr Usher's disease seeems to be strange that his friend, the narrator of the story, could not understand the nature of his disease; moreover, the happenings which take place in the mansion seem to be extremely queer, that the reader found it very difficult to interpret them. This brings us to the conclusion that the story was a complete mystery. It is part of Poe's philosophy that man is a microcosm of the larger macrocosm, the universe, which can be said to be a mystery by itsef: no one knows why the universe was created, or why Man themseves were created! It is still a big enigma! Similarly, Poe strives to embody this enigma in the character of Usher, who, out of queer agony and indescribable malady, dies crying at the end of the story, "Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!" Here he falls to the floor an insensible heap. At a later moment the tensity of fear aggravates when anothe mysterious scene of terror and mystery turns up to complete the tragedy of the "Ushers". Lady Madeline appears on the scene, though she is supposed to have already lost life between the hands of her brother. She finally turns up "trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold" to fall "heavily inward upon the person of her brother". The collapse of the tenants of the house of Usher was accompanied with a simultaneous collapse of the mansion itself, a collapse which, I believe, symbolizes life with its mystery, intricacies, ambiguities, injustices and anarchy.

-- Anonymous, March 10, 2002