“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839 in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine, then included in the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840.[1] The short story, a work of Gothic fiction, includes themes of madness, family, isolation, and metaphysical identities.[2]
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Edgar Allan Poe
The Fall of the House of Usher
Part One
iT Was a daRk and soundless
day near the end of the year, and
clouds were hanging low in the
heavens. All day I had been rid-
ing on horseback through coun-
try with little life or beauty; and
in the early evening I came within
view of the House of Usher.
I do not know how it was
— but, with my first sight of the
building, a sense of heavy sadness
filled my spirit. I looked at the
scene before me — at the house
itself — at the ground around it
— at the cold stone walls of the
building — at its empty eye-like
windows — and at a few dead trees — I looked at this scene, I say,
with a complete sadness of soul which was no healthy, earthly feeling.
There was a coldness, a sickening of the heart, in which I could dis-
cover nothing to lighten the weight I felt. What was it, I asked myself,
what was it that was so fearful, so frightening in my view of the House
of Usher? This was a question to which I could find no answer.
I stopped my horse beside the building, on the edge of a dark and
quiet lake. There, I could see reflected in the water a clear picture
of the dead trees, and of the house and its empty eye-like windows.
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Edgar Allan Poe: Storyteller
I was now going to spend several weeks in this house of sadness —
this house of gloom. Its owner was named Roderick Usher. We had
been friends when we were boys; but many years had passed since our
last meeting. A letter from him had reached me, a wild letter which
demanded that I reply by coming to see him. He wrote of an illness of
the body — of a sickness of the mind — and of a desire to see me —
his best and indeed his only friend. It was the manner in which all this
was said — it was the heart in it — which did not allow me to say no.
Although as boys we had been together, I really knew little about
my friend. I knew, however, that his family, a very old one, had long
been famous for its understanding of all the arts and for many quiet
acts of kindness to the poor. I had learned too that the family had
never been a large one, with many branches. The name had passed
always from father to son, and when people spoke of the “House of
Usher,” they included both the family and the family home.
I again looked up from the picture of the house reflected in the
lake to the house itself. A strange idea grew in my mind — an idea so
strange that I tell it only to show the force of the feelings which laid
their weight on me. I really believed that around the whole house,
and the ground around it, the air itself was different. It was not the air
of heaven. It rose from the dead, decaying trees, from the gray walls,
and the quiet lake. It was a sickly, unhealthy air that I could see,
slow-moving, heavy, and gray.
Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I looked
more carefully at the building itself. The most noticeable thing about
it seemed to be its great age. None of the walls had fallen, yet the
stones appeared to be in a condition of advanced decay. Perhaps the
careful eye would have discovered the beginning of a break in the
front of the building, a crack making its way from the top down the
wall until it became lost in the dark waters of the lake.
I rode over a short bridge to the house. A man who worked in the
house — a servant — took my horse, and I entered. Another servant,
of quiet step, led me without a word through many dark turnings to
the room of his master. Much that I met on the way added, I do not
know how, to the strangeness of which I have already spoken. While
the objects around me — the dark wall coverings, the blackness of
the floors, and the things brought home from long forgotten wars —
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Edgar Allan Poe
while these things were like the things I had known since I was a baby
— while I admitted that all this was only what I had expected — I was
still surprised at the strange ideas which grew in my mind from these
simple things.
The room I came into was very large and high. The windows were
high, and pointed at the top, and so far above the black floor that they
were quite out of reach. Only a little light, red in color, made its way
through the glass, and served to lighten the nearer and larger objects.
My eyes, however, tried and failed to see into the far, high corners of
the room. Dark coverings hung upon the walls. The many chairs and
tables had been used for a long, long time. Books lay around the room,
but could give it no sense of life. I felt sadness hanging over every-
thing. No escape from this deep cold gloom seemed possible.
As I entered the room, Usher stood up from where he had been
lying and met me with a warmth which at first I could not believe was
real. A look, however, at his face told me that every word he spoke
was true.
We sat down; and for some moments, while he said nothing, I
looked at him with a feeling of sad surprise. Surely, no man had ever
before changed as Roderick Usher had! Could this be the friend of my
early years? It is true that his face had always been unusual. He had
gray-white skin; eyes large and full of light; lips not bright in color,
but of a beautiful shape; a well-shaped nose; hair of great softness
— a face that was not easy to forget. And now the increase in this
strangeness of his face had caused so great a change that I almost did
not know him. The horrible white of his skin, and the strange light
in his eyes, surprised me and even made me afraid. His hair had been
allowed to grow, and in its softness it did not fall around his face but
seemed to lie upon the air. I could not, even with an effort, see in my
friend the appearance of a simple human being.
In his manner, I saw at once, changes came and went; and I
soon found that this resulted from his attempt to quiet a very great
nervousness. I had indeed been prepared for something like this,
partly by his letter and partly by remembering him as a boy. His actions
were first too quick and then too quiet. Sometimes his voice, slow
and trembling with fear, quickly changed to a strong, heavy, carefully
spaced, too perfectly controlled manner. It was in this manner that he
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