2. Describe the house of Usher

1. What is the single effect Poe creates? Single Effect: Poe’s belief that a short story can achieve unity by focusing on just ONE unique emotional effect that will draw the reader in (“hook”); reader feels what the character feels

Answers may vary “Insufferable Gloom”

2. Describe the house of Usher •“bleak walls” •“vacant eye-like windows” •“few rank sedges” •“white trunks of decayed trees”

•“It’s principle feature seemed to be that of excessive antiquity”

3. How does the narrator feel upon seeing the house of Usher? •“It was a mystery all insoluble.” The house has a certain sentient power to it but the narrator is unsure as to its impact

•“the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth.”

4. Why has the narrator come to the house of Usher?

The narrator is summoned by the house’s sickly inhabitant, Roderick Usher, who wishes for the company of his “only personal friend.”

5. What is peculiar (“deficiency”) about the Usher lineage?

Ushers = wealthy, cultured, “ancient” and incestuous family •“entire family lay in the direct line of descent” (296) The family name is always in jeopardy of dying out

6. How has Roderick Usher changed since the narrator last saw him? Narrator notices a remarkable alteration and hardly recognizes his childhood friend: •“man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period”

•“lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke”

7. Describe Roderick Usher’s affliction. 1.Hyperesthesia: sensory overload; hypersensitivity to light, sound, smells and tastes 2.Hypochondria: Preoccupation about illness 3.Acute anxiety *** Terms predate story, invention of modern psychological science

8. Who is Madeline? What is her affliction?

Madeline is Roderick’s sister

She has a “settled apathy, gradual wasting away” which had long baffled physicians. She falls into deathlike, catatonic trances (comatose states)

9. How does the poem reflect Usher’s state of mind? Poem = “The Haunted Palace” (a story within a story!)

An allegory about a king who is afraid of the evil forces that threaten him and his palace The poem conveys Usher’s fearful, fragile state and foreshadows Usher’s impending doom

10. What does the narrator learn when Madeline “dies”? Madeline is Roderick’s twin sister

Roderick wishes to temporarily entomb Madeline in the family catacombs for two weeks before permanent burial

11. How does Roderick Usher change after the “death” of his sister? “An observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend…” (305) • Ordinary manner vanished • His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten • He roams from chamber to chamber with objectless step

12. Describe the events that happen on the narrator’s sleepless night. “I struggled to reason off the full power of such feelings… the nervousness which had dominion over me.” The narrator’s mind begins to play tricks on him, as if the house is coming alive and taunting him A tempest occurs  Narrator begins to wander about the house  Narrator encounters Usher roaming throughout the house  Narrator notices the tarn illuminated yet not caused by storm’s lightning  Narrator decides to read the Mad Tryst to Usher so as to soothe him

13. What sounds does the narrator hear as he reads to Usher? Eerie noises occur around the house as the narrator reads to Usher, as if the sounds of the story are being mimicked by some supernatural entity “I did actually hear… a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound– the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon’s unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.” (308)

14. Why does the narrator flee the house of Usher?

The heightened sense of madness and terror combined with Lady Madeline’s “enshrouded figure” bearing Roderick a corpse forces the narrator to flee “aghast.”

15. What happens to the house of Usher? The house crumbles in on itself, signifying the finality of the Usher family lineage “Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and bloodred moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely discernible fissure, of building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly opened– there came a fierce breath at once upon my sight– my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder– there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters– and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the ‘House of Usher’” (309-310)