Is duality considered a theme in the "Fall of the House of Usher"?Edgar Allan Poe

If duality is not a theme, it certainly is a motif in
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher."  For, beginning with the
double entendre of "House of Usher" as both the mansion and the
Usher family, this duality motif is repeated with the twins Roderick and Madeline Usher
and their dual genetic afflictions.  Adding to this motif is Poe's technique of what he
termed arabesque as he repeats and loups the Ushers' bizarre traits
with each other and with the
house.

double entendre
of the House of Usher

• The mansion
  is personified has having "vacant eyelike window" which are not unlike Roderick's eyes
  which are "bent fixedly before him" and "the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone
  out."


• As the condition of Roderick's health deteriorates,
  so, too, does that of the mansion.  For instance, the narrator describes the gloomy
  furniture and the "

readability="9">

tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion
by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the
walls.

• Likewise,
  Madeline dies and Roderick is tortured  and "a strong shudder [came] over his whole
  person."


• Of course, after the twins are in their final
  death agonies, the mansion's "mighty walls rush asunder...[leaving] the fragments of the
  'House of
  Usher.'

the twins
Roderick and Madeline

• Like his
  deceased sister, Roderick Usher is described as having
  

a
cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond
comparison;...and very
pallid....

• The
  narrator notices

readability="7">

A striking similitude between the brother and
sister now first arrested my attention...from which I learned that the deceased and
himself had...sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature [that] always existed between
them.

arabesque

• Throughout
  the story, Poe repeats his duality motif and loups the bizarre traits of the twins
  Roderick and Madeline with the strange happenings in the mansion. For, as he approaches
  the mansion of the Ushers, the narrator is overcome with an "iciness, a sinking, a
  sickening of the heart..."  So, too, does he sense with Roderick "sensations which
  oppressed me." Then, as the narrator regards the lady Madeline, he
  comments,

readability="6">

I regarded her with an utter astonisment not
unmingled with dread--and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings.  A
sensation of stupor oppressed
me...

• Later, the
  narrator describes Madeline as having a stupor of
  kind,

readability="7">

A settled apathy, ...and frequent
although transient ...affections of a partially cataleptical
characters.

A most
ingeniously woven plot and development of character, Poe's "The Fall of the House of
Usher" exhibits much duality as a prevailing motif.