Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher

Good Morning, dear tenant, I hope you had a good night filled with demented nightmares and demons driving you literally crazy. Now, let us continue our tour here, in the Asylum.

The subject of our next stop is the House of Usher. Or, to be more precise, The Fall of the House of Usher. The title refers to the place where the two main characters fall into insanity. A thought-provoking parallel can be drawn with Charlotte's Yellow Wallpaper for two reasons. For instance, a physical object, in this case, a house represents the state of mind of its tenant in Poe's short story as well. Furthermore, just as Charlotte was obsessed with the lack of order in the pattern of the wallpaper, the protagonist of this story is bothered by the perplexing arrangement of the furniture in the house, by the dark draperies, and the fretted ceiling. This atmosphere of dissonance infected him with gloom and fear.

What I'm interested in, however, is why the mad notice the software errors of their mind in the physical world first. Is it because as they are falling deeper into insanity, their senses trick them and they see the flaws, stains, and holes of their mental health materializing in tangible objects? Or is it because they are scared to face their madness all alone, only on a mental level, so they project it all out so that they could put the blame on reality? As if it were all the fault of a nauseating color, a creepy smell, and the fretted ceiling? Are they merely afraid to face themselves? If so, they might not be that different from their sane fellows after all..

Poe's piece of work is remarkable for the literary passages in it and their connection to the main topic. Both the poem and "Mad Trist" (mind the word describing both the characters' state of mind the book they are reading) of Sir Lancelot Canning reflect upon the mental derangement of Usher. (Another example of the author's linguistic virtuosity is the choice of the name of Usher's sister: Lady Madeline.)

Instead of analyzing the poem, let an excerpt from it stand for itself to illustrate its lacework of fantasy and reality, sanity and madness, fiction and nonfiction:

" V

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch’s high estate
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!);
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.

VI
And travelers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh—but smile no more."

If we scrutinize the excerpt from an artistic point of view, it is apparent what the author meant by "the monarch's high estate" or "a discordant melody".

From the aspect, of course, the house itself is a metaphor of Usher's mind, and the fall symbolizes the collapsion of his sanity. As far as the narrator is considered, he escapes just in time so that he won't be buried by the cutting fragments of Usher's mental health. What about you? Will you get sober just in time to get out of the way of the falling shards coming from the psychic eruption of your lunacy? We'll see.. Just stay here to keep the can of worms closed. Take care, dear bedlamite.