rator fled from the house. At some distance, he glanced back. There, in the light of the "full, setting and blood-red moon," the plot is resolved as he saw the massive House of Usher collapsed into pieces by a whirlwind, and then swallowed up into the dark lake that surrounded it. There are three characters in this story, all of them significant. The narrator is a boyhood friend of Roderick Ushers, who seems to be kind hearted as he comes to visit him when Usher reaches out to him for help. He seems to be flat and static at first, merely a reporter to the story he is involved in. However, he becomes round and more complex when he begins to panic for no apparent reason, other than the contagious insanity of Usher. This change from reasonable to near-hysterical on the part of the Narrator is important to the development of the plot, because it takes the story from a realistic point of view to a irrational one, more conducive to the events that eventually unfold.The other two characters are Madeline and Roderick Usher, the only surviving descendents of the line of the lineage of Usher. They are twins who seem to be able to see into each other without words or glances. This aspect contributes greatly to the unity of the plot. They both suffer from different illnesses, although both are a form of insanity. It is hinted that these may stem from incest, as the lineage of the Ushers, lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain (Poe, 365).Roderick Usher is a dynamic character, who changes many times in the course of the story, contributing to the suspense and horror of the plot by enhancing it with his continuing journey into madness and paranoia. His wild, inconsistent moods also help to develop the story by adding to the readers unease, thus making each new development somewhat expected, yet at the same time a complete surprise.Edgar Poe does not allow the reader much gl...
