nd the narrator. Everything presented in the story evolves from the unity of this central symbol, expanding throughout the story, only to collapse back into oneness at the end of the tale.The story begins with the narrator’s arrival at the House of Usher. As the narrator observes the house he considers what he knows of its inhabitants. The narrator captures the evolution of the Usher family. This family produced only one male heir in each generation, with the family mansion passing to that heir. As a result, the surrounding villagers began to perceive the house and the family as one. The reader is led to believe that the family built the house and the house evolved from the family. “Roderick Usher was convinced that his whole surroundings, the stones of the house, the fungi, the water in the tarn, the very reflected image of the whole, was woven into a physical oneness with the family, condensed, as it were, into one atmosphere—the special atmosphere in which alone the Ushers could live. And it was this atmosphere which had molded the destinies of his family” (Lawrence 378). Not only did the house become the “House of Usher,” as the narrator was to discover, but the house took on the resemblance of its heir, Roderick Usher.As the narrator arrives at the house, he begins to form a mental picture of the house. The narrator feels a sense of ‘insufferable gloom’ pervading his spirit. He pauses to look at the ‘mere house,’ trying to account rationally for its total weird effect. But the scene still produces in him ‘an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium. . .an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed dreariness of thought. . .it was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. (Thompson...
