Name _____________________________________________
Ms. Barbara
Date
______________________
Literature
T H E FALL O F T H E H O USE O F USH ER by Edgar Allan Poe
ASSIGNMENT:
Read The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe
Complete vocabulary and discussion questions
VOCABULARY:
tract - melancholy - insufferable - rank - sedges - reveller - goad - insoluble - precipitous - lurid tarn - boon - singular - munificent - unobtrusive - orthodox - collateral - patrimony - equivocal appellation - paradoxical - reeked - pestilent - mystic - dilapidation - fissure - Gothic - valet - ebon phantasmagoric - armorial - accosted - trepidation - trellised - encrimsoned - fretted - irredeemable
- ennui - wan - cadaverous - pallid - tenuity - pallor - gossamer - arabesque - incoherence trepidancy - tremulous - abeyance - guttural - solace - morbid - acuteness - insipid - anomalous bounden - agitation - abhorrence - tenanted - physique - palpable - dissolution - stupor emaciated - apathy - transient - cataleptical - succumbed - improvisations - sulphurous - dirges perversions - educe - compass - hypochondriac - reveries - auditory - fervid - alluded - rhapsodies tottering - pinion - discordant - pertinacity - sentience - collocation - tressels - divining luminousness - inexplicable - vagaries - incubus - hilarity - hysteria - appalled - careering - miasma uncouth - prolixity - doughty - parley - mace - gauntleted - prodigious - demeanor - protracted tarried - clangorous - reverberated - rigidity - gibbering - potency - enshrouded - emaciated - fissure
DISCUSSION:
1.
What is the House of Usher?
2.
Is Poe referring to the physical construction — i.e., a house? Is he referring to Roderick and Madeline? To the entire
Usher line?
3.
Compare the story’s first and last paragraphs. How do setting and time signal the conflicts which will be resolved by
story’s end?
4.
List the adjectives in the first paragraph.
5.
Discuss their connotations. How do these create the story’s tone? For example, the opening sentence describes the
autumn day as “dull, dark, and soundless.” What does Poe mean by “dull”? Is it dull in the sense that a knife’s blade
is dull? Or dull in the sense of unexciting? Dull in the sense of lifeless? Bland?
6.
Rewrite Poe’s first sentence using your own words to demonstrate how effective Poe’s diction is.
7.
What are the conflicts presented in the story? Is there a central conflict? Describe it.
8.
How are the conflicts resolved? Does the story’s final paragraph show that the conflicts are resolved?
9.
From whose point of view is the story told?
10.
What do we know about the narrator? What is his function in the story?
11.
Does he change at all?
12.
Why does Poe present the narrator as a reasonable man, someone who strives to explain the extraordinary
(paranormal?) events that unfold. Do we sympathize with him? Do we identify with him, feeling the terror as he
does?
13.
What events change his attitude toward the Ushers and his circumstances?
The Fall of the House of Usher Reading Assignment
14.
The story begins with an epigraph, a quotation from de Beranger which is translated: “His heart is a suspended lute
/ As soon as one touches it, it responds.” How does the metaphor in this epigraph help explain Roderick’s character?
15.
What touches Roderick’s heart? Why is he terrified?
16.
Review Roderick’s daily activities. What does he do all day? What does he read? What do these works tell you about
his character/ what kind of music does he play?
17.
Describe the picture that he paints. How does it foreshadow the story’s end?
18.
Does Roderick believe in the supernatural? God? A devil? Or simply supernatural forces?
19.
Explicate the verses of the song Roderick has composed. What do they tell you about the House of Usher, a
movement from light to darkness, from joy to melancholy, from reason to terror?
20.
How does Roderick’s theory that all vegetable things have sentience suit him?
21.
Explain the relationship between Roderick and Madeline. When Poe says that ‘sympathies if a scarcely intelligible
nature had always existed between them,” what does he mean? Is this a foreshadowing of the story’s ending?
22.
Is Roderick responsible for burying her alive? How do you know? Why does he select the particular vault — the
“donjon-keep . . . carefully sheathed with copper . . . the door, of massive iron . . . similarly protected”?
23.
Madeline dies from “maladies of a strictly cataleptical nature.” What is catalepsis? Is it the same as coma? Might a
cataleptic present the appearance of having died?
24.
After Madeline is placed in the vault, how does Roderick’s behavior change? Why? Has he guess that she is not really
dead? Is he racked by guilt? Anxiety? Terror?
25.
The climax of the story occurs in a storm. What kind of storm?
26.
The narrator refers to the evening as “a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and ne wildly singular in its terror
and its beauty.” Explain his words.
27.
He further describes the vicinity as “glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous
exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.” What is the logical explanation for the luminosity?
How does it cause terror? Why does Poe say that the light “enshrouded the mansion”?
28.
What is a shroud? (Poe repeats the word when Madeline reappears.
29.
How does Ethelred’s story fit this scene? How does Roderick link details from this story with his current situation
(e.g., the brass [copper + zinc] shield and Madeline’s copper-sheathed vault)?
30.
What kills Roderick? Madeline?
31.
What destroys the house?
32.
What is the theme of this story?
The Fall of the House of Usher Reading Assignment