Chris's Reviews > The Fall of the House of Usher

Can you believe that I have never read any Poe stories? Just the titular poem The Raven. This was the perfect short story for Halloween night. If it had been a stormy night here at home, it would have just elevated the level of fearful anticipation of what was to come in this gothic tale. The atmosphere is set from the very beginning and continues through the telling of the tale. Our narrator has come at the request of his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, to spend time with him as he suffers a vaguely described illness. Poe goes to great lengths to set the foreboding nature of what is to come in both his descriptions of surroundings, the mansion itself and the Usher siblings, the last of their line. Mental illness? Ghost story? Vampiric overtones?
It becomes obvious that the "fall" of the House of Usher refers to both the physical house and Roderick & Madeline Usher. The real terror of our narrator really ramps up when he is reading aloud a story to Roderick when they both are nervous and can't sleep. The various sounds in the novel seem to be echoed in the house.