Edgar Allen Poe was a tormented man who wrote stories of horrific deeds, terrifying circumstances, and dreadful practices.  One story in particular worth looking at is “The Fall of the House of Usher.”  In this story incest, a premature burial, and mental illnesses provide the main themes Mental illness especially plays a dramatic and important role in the story as it feeds the mind of Usher and leads him into delirium.

First, take a look at Poe’s interest in the theme of incest.  Poe himself had married his very young cousin, Virginia Clemm.  Therefore, incest was an ever-present influence in Poe’s life and in his tortured writings.  It is not surprising, then, that in “The Fall of the House of Usher” the author decided to incorporate the sinful and genetically unsafe practice of incest.  The narrator speaks later of how the family had for a long time kept the generations multiplying through relative blood, which likely contributed to the illnesses incurred upon the members of the Usher household.  This creates the building block for the plot.

Another thematic element of “The Fall of the House of Usher” is that of burying someone alive.  At the time when Poe wrote this story, it is known that people were often pronounced dead prematurely due to the lack of advanced medical technology.  Grave robbers proved this true.  When they looted certain graves, evidence suggested that the deceased had, at some point, struggled to free themselves from their underground imprisonment.  There would be scratches along the lids of the coffins and chunks of wood under the fingernails of the helpless victims.  Therefore, often, the real cause of death would be suffocation in a wooden box six feet below the earth’s surface. 

Poe was fearful of having the same fate as these pitiful men and women.  He even traveled with a special coffin that he had made for himself.  This coffin contained a tube that would reach from its lid to about a foot above ground, to provide oxygen to his body, should he be buried alive.  Moreover, there was a bell connected at the top of the tube with a string that, if he found himself in such a predicament, he could pull in hopes someone would hear and aid him.  He went so far as to hire a young boy to sit by his grave for twenty-four hours in case such an event should occur. Ironically, Poe died while his coffin was en route to his current location and he was buried in a regular coffin, presumably dead.

It was because of this somewhat obsessive-compulsive fear, that Poe was able to capture so vividly the terror of premature burial.  It is interesting that he took the initial panic, which those victims probably experienced, to an entirely new level.  Poe’s character not only dug out of her wooden prison, but also broke free, and tore through the door of the crypt.  The anger and frustration of being thrown into a termite-infested box, while still living, is clearly displayed through the young woman’s vengeful emergence from her “death.”

Next, take a look at the theme of mental instability.  Usher is a man plagued throughout the story by bouts of terrible depression.  He lives in a dark, damp environment and seems almost to display the symptoms of seasonal affective disorder.  However, he succumbs to this mental illness and recedes deeper and deeper in his woe as evidenced by his total loss of sanity as time progresses.  He grows wearier despite his friend’s arrival due to his sister’s illness and his own inability to cope with his surroundings.  Usher wrote to the narrator because of his illness and that of his sister, and he wanted to see his good friend with the hope that seeing a familiar and loving face would shatter this world of pain in which he resided.  This seemed to prove ineffective however as he continued to digress and eventually met his maker.  The darkness of Usher’s home, genetic discrepancies, and mental illnesses pulls the demented man into an abyss of sorrow, which gradually causes him to go mad.  It is because of his last state of insanity and his sister’s lunacy that leads the reader to understand just how important it is for the destruction of the Usher family.  This is clearly displayed in the last scene as Usher returns to a state of childlike paranoia and panics, but to no avail.  Dramatically, the door shakes and all of a sudden, the figure of his sister appears in the doorway to the crypts and all hope of normalcy is completely shattered.  The narrator flees in fear and despair.  When the house falls along with the two remaining members of the insane bloodline, an ending to the genetic mutations and insanity is achieved.  Poe alleviates the tension as the possible sources of destruction and despair are trounced and the reader is able to feel a sense of peace.