The New Dress by Virginia Woolf

“The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839) is regarded as one of the most famous Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, a masterpiece of Gothic horror. The story has an emotional and ironic tone. Among the themes we can name: fear, incest, guilt, madness, disease and death.

Plot

The narrator, whose name is unknown, arrives in a dark and soundless autumn day at the House of Usher. He unnervingly contemplates the mansion for a while noticing its eye-like windows, the fissure on its roof and the deep black tarn before it.

The owner, Roderick Usher, is a childhood friend of the narrator who has called him asking for help. The man suffers from hyperesthesia (hypersensitivity to light, sounds, smells and tastes) and hypochondria (excessive worry and fear about having a serious disease) due to his twin sister’s, Madeline, catalepsy and fear that she would soon die, and also to the belief that the house is able to feel or perceive things. The narrator is surprised by Roderick’s talent and love towards literature, art and music, which doesn’t seem to be enough to help him recover.

When Madeline suddenly dies (or she’s believed to have died), Roderick and the narrator entombs her in one of the vaults within the walls of the mansion. It is then when the narrator discovers that they were twins united by a strange intelligible bond. He also observes a radical change in Usher’s manners, as if guarding a secret.

During the following week they are unable to sleep. One stormy night, the narrator hears sounds overpowering him by an intense feeling of terror. Suddenly Usher comes into his room and asks him whether he has “not seen it.” In order to calm him down he starts reading the “Mad Trist” of Sir Launcelot Canning.

As he reads aloud, the sounds mentioned in the story can be heard coming from somewhere in the mansion. Completely terrified, Usher confesses that he had been listening to the beating of Madeline’s heart and her movements inside the vault for several days and she is now coming for him. The door of the room throws back and there she is. With a low moaning cry she throws herself upon her brother who falls dead to the floor as a victim of the terrors he have envisaged.

Extremely frightened, the narrator flees the mansion. Once outside, he realizes that the fissure on the roof of the house is now widening. The mansion cracks in two and finally sinks into the dark tarn.

Understanding of love

Although the story addresses very dark themes, it is still possible to find the element of love. 
From the very beginning, the narrator’s visit to his mentally sick friend Broderick clearly shows his interest and care, despite the fact that they have not been in contact for a long time. This made us reflect on the fact that sometimes we forget about the people we love and only remember them when we know that they are ill or in danger. 
Love is a recurrent theme in all forms of literature, and it is generally regarded as something dull. In this story, however, we are able to perceive love as a violent force. It plays a very important role because it reflects the strong bond between Broderick and his twin sister Madeline, to the extent that they both die at the same time.
Not only is there love between human beings, but also love for art, music and literature. Despite the fact that Broderick lives in a huge and dreadful mansion with his sister, it seems that the affection he should feel for his family is replaced by his love for music, books and paintings, which appear to be the only things that help him go on with his life.