smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light; lying at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. The whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound as it moved upon its hinges” (Poe, 1353).In the story there is a super-sensitive hero who is a person that cannot function well in the “normal” world. Roderick Usher has a super-sensitivity to the point of maladjustment because of his undefined illness:“He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror” (1348). Often in the gothic story, the characters seem to posses some sort of psychic communication; this usually occurs between a member of the living world and a “living” corpse. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” this kind of communication exists between Roderick Usher and his twin sister, Lady Madeline:“Not hear it? -Yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long-long-long-many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it-yet I dared not-oh, pity me; miserable wretch that I am! -Dared not-I Bajaj 3dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? -I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them many, many days ago-yet I dared not-I dared not speak…Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door! (13...
