The Fall of the House of Usher

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The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allan Poe

Outside of his writing, Edgar Allan Poe led a rather unremarkable life. It was an existence that would give any mother cause for concern. Not his, for Poe was an orphan.

As a young adult, Poe engaged in indiscriminate gambling, such that his debts forced him to drop out of the University of Virginia. He subsequently enlisted in the army and was then accepted to West Point, where his insubordination led to expulsion. It was at this time that Poe committed himself to life as a writer. A short life it was, for he was discovered unconscious in a Baltimore gutter at the age of 40 and died shortly thereafter.

Poe chased the themes of isolation and despair into his work as well. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” these motifs are entwined not only with the psychology of the characters—ailing siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher—but also into the setting itself: “the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had at length brought about upon the morale of [Roderick’s] existence.”

Here, the house and its inhabitants are solely confined. All is Usher…and Poe’s ability to fold the reader into a secretive envelope of haunting intrigue is unmatched.

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