1820-1865: Short Answer Quiz

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”


  1. Near the beginning of the story, the narrator asks himself “What was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?” (p. 1553 [full ed.], p. 689 [shorter ed.]). Without answering his question, he adds on the next page that “[t]here can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition— for why should I not so term it?— served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis” (p. 1554 [full ed.], p. 690 [shorter ed.]). Discuss the effect Poe creates by implying rather than explicitly describing the terrors of the House of Usher.

  1. Discuss the connection between the power of the word to affect events in this story. Toward the beginning of the story, the narrator links the house that the Ushers live in with their bloodline, and when both characters die at the end, the house physically collapses. Similarly, the noises that Madeline makes in approaching Roderick’s chamber seem perfectly timed, even caused by, the story of Ethelred and the dragon that the narrator reads aloud. Roderick’s wan face and pale skin are also said to be a result of the books he reads. Why do you think Poe makes literary language appear so powerful in this story?

  1. Describe the narrator’s motivation in this story. Why does he commit to a visit of several weeks with a friend he admits he does not intimately know anymore, if he ever truly did? Why does he stay in the house after it becomes clear that dark and macabre events will soon unfold?

  1. Consider the “phantasmagoric conception” that Roderick paints near the beginning of the story: “A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth” (p. 1558 [full ed.], p. 694 [shorter ed.]). Decide whether Roderick knew his sister was still alive when he and the narrator buried her, and explain your decision.



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