Analysis of Edgar Allan Poes Fall of the House of Usher

The House of Usher ultimately falls because of the unnatural interdependence between
brother and sister. Madeline is Roderick's "sole companion for long years," which is apparent
because even the narrator, despite being friends with Roderick, knows next to nothing about
him. The two have confined themselves inside their family home in a self-formed trap from
which there is no escape. The two must stay together. Just as the mirror image of the house
seen in the tarn cannot exist without the house itself, Roderick and his sister are two halves
of the same whole and cannot exist without one another. Roderick himself seems to realize
that he will "perish in this deplorable folly," which is potentially a reference to the obsessive
and inescapable interdependence with his sister. Even if he attempts to break free of this
relationship by locking his assumed-to-be-dead sister in the family crypt, however, he has
already reached a point where the attempt itself is enough to cause the fall of his own being as
well as the "house" or family line of Usher.