TFOTHOU 3 gr A

 First paragraph of The Fall of the House of Usher

The writing of Poe is intricate and often difficult to understand. However the story itself is rather simple, and the themes are repeated all along.

PLOT

The narrator reaches a house. He's scared and impressed by it. Riding his horse, he contemplates the lake near the house.

THEMES

There are two characters in this paragraph: the narrator and the house. The house is personified several times : it is the "melancholy House of Usher," so it is sick, and its humours are deranged. It also has "eye-like windows." This seminal (first) catechresis has become highly influential in the horror genre and in the haunted house subgenre (Amityville, The Haunting of Hill House, The Shining...). Just like in these works, the House of Usher seems empty and evil.

"Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does become a monster in the process. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you."

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1881
 
So when the narrator looks at the house, the house looks back at him.

 


Il compare ensuite la maison et ce qui l'entoure aux rêveries d'un fumeur d'opium : "the afterdream of the reveller upon opium," ainsi qu'à un dévoilement hideux : "the hideous dropping off of the veil."

The "inverted images" of the house feels like the house itself has a double. When the narrator looks into the "black and lurid tarn", he shudders even more. His fear could illustrate this sentence from Nietzsche :

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