The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe | Summary & Analysis

I wish my teachers explained it like this.

As a French student, I am working on this short story in my English litteratury class. This helped me a lot ! Thanks !

Thank you for helping me better understand The Fall of the House of Usher. I read the short story for class and I quite didn't understand the plot. Also, I didn't know this story had supernatural ties.

Thanks a lot, this came just in time for my literature course tomorrow ^^

Summary and additional analysis : Spoiler alert! The characters were well developed if you treat the story like a puzzle, as Poe leaves hints and clues all throughout the story about the entire book: Roderick loved his sister in a romantic incestuous way. She wanted to marry someone else, of course. He didn't wanna let her so he buried her alive. (It is foreshadowed by Roderick himself as he once again makes up what "would" upset his sister: being buried alive.) After he did so, he got consumed by his so called guilt. And she finally came as a ghost to punish him . He was possessive of his sister, he forced her to stay indoors as not to have any other man look at her, then made it up that he knows she doesn't like it despite her never saying such a thing. He gaslighted her and then he killed her when he couldn't take her (normal) rejection anymore. She is a victim, a silent invisible one. Here one of Poe favorite things: the death of a beautiful woman, happens again. If you recall, Poe said there is nothing more incredible/amazing/etc than the death of a beautiful woman. And he used that idea in a ton of his stories: Ligeia, The Oval Portrait, The house of Usher, Bernice, etc. In all these stories, the perpetrator is different and the means by which the beautiful woman dies are also different, but that is the entire highlight, intrigue of the story: the death of a beautiful woman.

Wow! Thank you so much! I really needed a video to summarize and explain the story. You did just that. Once again, Thank you! What an amazing video.

Well done, good analysis. A short glimpse at the physicians reaction to the narrator´s visit would have been a nice bonus...

I wish the incestous affair of the Usher lineage, hinted at earlier in the story (“the entire family lay in the direct line of descent”)was also discussed, but I realize this was meant to be a more wholesome take on the story.

A great analysis ! It made me forget that i'm preparing for the lit exam and just enjoy the story 👌🏻

thank you so much, you made it way easier to analyse and understand !!!!

thank you for this!the explanation is clear and I can understand it better

Love you Russell!!!❤❤voice,tone, hand movements...❤

hello, here's some late night analysis to add: This story we’re invited to read is a story of a point of view infected by the madness of the master of the place, which is Roderick User, from the start the point of view is totally dart, and the narrator wants to change it, right from the 1st paragraph in L20 “It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression” = what affects him in his relation with reality is his interpretation to reality, reality simply is, the way he interprets the words his choosing , in fact his talking about reality as a scene L8 he interprets the scene as a picture

Thank you so much for this!

Thanks you Sir, for this great contribution for us...

It seems to me that mental illness was common among gothic characters. Thank you for your video! Well written and insightful

im working on an essay due 2 months ago on this story, thanks for the refresher

Thank you for this information in this It helped me understand this short story

Thanks man really do appreciate it

I can’t wait to see Flanagan’s version of it