The various supersititions and fantasy world of Roderick
Usher in this Gothic classic are conveyed through the medium of the anonymous narrator,
who takes the form of an old friend of Roderick's who has been asked to spend some time
with him in his house to help his friend recover. It is clear from the introduction of
the story, when the narrator arrives and looks upon the House of Usher, that the house
itself is an important character of this short story, and as he spends time with
Roderick, and finds his old friend a "bounden slave" to an "anomalous species of
terror," that the house itself is part of this terror and is a vital part of the
terrifying imagination and fantasy that Roderick constructs and oppresses him so
severely. Note what the narrator tells us:
He was enchained by certain superstitious
impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence for many years, he
had never ventured forth--in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was
conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated--an influence which some
peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long
sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit--an effect which the physique
of the grey walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked
down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his
existence.
We can therefore
see that a key element of the interior fantasy and imagination of Roderick Usher relates
to the powerful bond that exists between himself and his family home, and, of course,
his sister. This is a bond that is so strong that it unites them all in a common doom
and end, as even the house at the finale of the tale is
destroyed.
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