ess environment also help to develop the melancholy tone and morbid setting of the story.There are many symbols in this story, but the most obvious is that of the surviving Ushers and the actual house being one and the same. From Poes first description of the house, the reader sees it as a face with vacant eye-like windows and feels the Narrator being swallowed up by the oppressive Gothic archway through which he enters. Both the House of Usher and the Ushers themselves were once wealthy and of great prestige, and both seem strong enough at the beginning, but slowly crack and eventually succumb to destruction. The author describes the house, Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. The Ushers, who both appear old and frail, gave little sign in the beginning that underneath the surface, their mentality was slipping away. It is not until later in the story that we see their foundations crumble.The house is also a symbol of the human head, as shown by the vocabulary Poe uses to describe it, as well as the parallels in the song that Usher sang. The house consisted of different chambers, with different setting and atmosphere. This suggests that the human brain also has all these different compartments and areas that hold insanity and madness, even secret, unconscious desires. When the house finally falls, it is symbolizing the breakdown of sanity, and reason.Another important symbol is that of unity, and of mirror images. The house is reflected in the tarn (lake), the landscape parallels the death and decay of the house, the Ushers, being twins, are reflections of each other, the Ushers mirror the house, and the room in which the Narrator first meets Usher mirrors Rodericks unhinging mental state.All these critical elements to a short story come together to form the main idea of The Fall of the House of Usher. The theme is that an irreconcilable fracture in ones personality ca...
