Description of Roderick Usher

Edgar Alan Poe is an American writer, who is best known for his fondness for macabre, dualism of the world, mysterious atmosphere and incomprehensible events. He also likes to put very complicated and complex characters into his stories.

In The fall of house of Usher Poe introduce us to Roderick Usher, one the main characters in the story. Roderick along with his twin sister Madeline are the last standing descendants of the Ushers. The family was prestigious and rather a wealthy one, but some of its members suffered from some kind of mental diseases. Also Madeline suffered from an unexplainable illness.

Roderick is totally isolated from the world. He does not go out, he does not like the light and he cannot stand the smell of the flowers. He buried himself in his creepy house, abandoning himself in grief.

At the beginning, Roderick, feeling that he is suffering from mental disorder, wrote a letter to his friend from childhood in order to ask for help and comfort. He did not give himself over to despair. He wanted somebody to help him, but the situation changed dramatically later.

Roderick had some features that could describe him as a romantic hero. He was driven by his heart, not knowledge. He was also an artist. He played guitar and painted. There is also one other matter that is worth thinking it over. A romantic hero had always experienced a feeling of a huge, passionate love, but because of Roderick’s isolation we can assume that his sister was the only woman he did love. Maybe it was not only a brotherly love, more like an incestuous passion.

Roderick’s mental condition was getting worse and worse as the story progresses. When Madeline died, Roderick had a feeling that he cannot let her go. He did not want to bury her in the Usher’s family burial grounds, because they were distant from where he lived. Maybe Roderick did not want his sister to be so far away from him. Along with his friend, he decided to bury Madeline in a vault. From this moment on the situation got worse. Roderick seemed to fall completely into the madness. He almost lost contact with reality. The narrator noted this alarming mental condition:

“His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue - but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness