The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard begins his book, The Sickness Unto Death like this: “Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self.” I understand The Fall of the House of Usher in these terms; the story is a description of the sick self, the sick spirit, the mortally morbid human.
The title provides a reasonable summary of the story: the subject is the House of Usher and what happens to the House is a fall. That would be simple enough, but matters are complicated by the fact that the phrase “House of Usher” has more than one meaning; the phrase can mean, “both the family and the family mansion.” However, when reading the story, it becomes quite clear that these two meanings do not represent two different realities, but that, rather, they are two different representations of the same reality. The literal, physical House of Usher is a dilapidated mansion, standing in isolation in a bleak and hostile environment. The figurative House of Usher is the Usher family, which also exists in a state of isolation―the Usher genealogy is marked by consanguineous marriages. It is quite possible that this inbreeding was the cause of Roderick Usher’s illness – he complains of “a constitutional and family evil.” (Madeline’s sickness may also be linked to this inbreeding.) In the same way, isolation in a moist environment has caused the Usher family mansion to fall into disrepair. These parallels indicate that the two meanings of the phrase, “House of Usher” refer to the same thing.
However, what exactly does the House symbolize? I take it to symbolize the totality of the constituents of the humanity of an aesthetically, morally, and spiritually…
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…rick. That is to say, a self-reflection exists naturally without one’s doing anything to bring it into existence, but one is ignorant of it until one begins to look at oneself.
As soon as Madeline appears to have died, Roderick buries her securely in a vault, and this perhaps reflects the ill person’s subconscious emotional aversion to the sight of himself. Of course, one would also want to avoid one’s self-reflection being dissected and studied by others and this would be consistent with Roderick’s stated intent in burying her so securely. However, one’s self-reflection cannot but exist, and it comes to pursue Roderick. Emotionally, overcome by the sight of himself, the ill person ceases introspection, but this is a surrender of one’s humanity to destruction. And thus, the House of Usher falls.
Works Cited
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Sickness Unto Death
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