Poe wrote The Fall of the House of Usher towards the end of the classic Gothic era, and may be one of the causes for its demise. He uses many of the Gothic conventions, but links them to a world which is passing - the new world, that of rationality rather than superstition - is shown to be (if not immune) un-moved by the terrorising effects of Gothic images. In his story, I will attempt to show how the power of the supernatural is removed during a kind of death-throe of the old superstitous Feudal order, and how the modern rationalistic order is secured from its further influence.

Poe's prominent use of Gothic conventions is seen in the narrator's limitation of view, both physically (outer limits), and emotionally (inner limits). The day is described as being dark, dull, and with clouds: "hung oppressively low in the heavens". On seeing the house he feels "a sense of insufferable gloom"; that this gloom is described as affecting his spirit, Poe shows his narrator to be a person of sensibility first, and a man of science second. These three Gothic elements are tied, and are important throughout the rest of the story, for a man of sensibility is required to supply a subjective view and to 'tune-in' to the up-coming events at the house of usher (which are mostly of a metaphysical sort), and a man of science is required to apply objectivity to what is experienced. Though this kind of man is new to Gothic, (not seen again until Drakula), his mixture of both the sensibility(Radcliffian) and the scientific is used by Poe to add a particular terror to the story as subjective and objective war constantly throughout the narrative producing only mutual obscurity. This obscurity then acts in typical Gothic fashion to limit the narrator's outer horizons (providing a metaphysical threat), and to his inner horizons (providing a psychological threat).

Here Poe demonstrates the clash between physical and metaphysical, science and superstition: obeying his scientific impulse to rationalise the narrator seeks a different emotional response from a different viewpoint, here: a reflection in the water. However, all he succeeds in doing is heightening his supernatural experience. His even more restricted view in the pool produces a stronger metaphysical effect; his sensitivity, demonstrated by the rich poetic language, and oppressed/limited by the almost stagnant water and the dead trees, increases his superstition and sense of the sublime. His sensibility obscures his objectivity, and his objectivity obscures his understanding of the metaphysical. As such, he is thus shown to be powerless to fully describe or comprehend the events which are to unfold, or what might be the cause of them, due to the fall-out of obscurity. Such conflict is effectively used by Poe, by combining the gothic conventions of inner and outer obscurity in one person, to supply convincing objective and subjective narratives of events as each gets the upper hand in the narrator's psyche, adding psychological terror to that of confusion at the manifestation of certain elements which can be termed Gothic (e.g.: dead trees, unnatural silence, eye-like windows, and mystic-vapours).

What appears to a major them of Poe's, that of the stripping away the veneer of a romanticised past, is achieved through the depiction of the overlap of the old feudal order against the new. His mains tools in this quest are Gothic in nature, and embodied in three major players: Roderick Usher, the narrator, and the house itself. Though the house is not classic Gothic in design (it is not a castle), it contains a keep, towers, dungeons, has a lake which is described like - hand acts effectively as - a moat; but most important of all for Gothism: it has windows like eyes. However, its appearance is not what is of importance, but what it stands for. Poe takes great pains to establish the direct link both metaphorically and physically with the Usher family and its ancient roots:

This metaphoric linking of house and family is also stretched in a metaphysical way to link them also physically. The fact that only ever one heir has ever existed to take-up the patriarchy of only one house is noticed lightly by the narrator, but Poe uses it to add a sinister element to both the house, and - through the metaphoric linking - to ancient family history. The physical linking is also suggested by the dilapidated and rotting appearance of the house with Roderick Usher's own physical illness, but mainly applied by his own protestations of the House' atmosphere and living will directly affecting his mental and physical health.

Having effected this link, all the sinister evil of the house, noticed by the partially veiled awareness of the narrator, is transferred onto the family (has the house influenced the inhabitants, or vice versa?). Such a linking is Gothic in nature: limits of the castle equate to the limits of the self. That the house is described as:

suggests also something similar to the past history of the Usher family, which Poe describes through its Gothic characteristics, (and the hinting of the vault being used to hold explosives, as well as for 'the worst purposes of a donjon-keep'), as being far from that of sensibility.

However it may be with his ancestors, the narrator describes his friend, Roderick Usher, as almost the embodiment of sensibility, and seems far from capable of performing any misdeeds. He is the typical Gothic man of sensibility. This is important, as the events which happen to him in the story is made more horrific by them occurring to one undeserving. His sensibility is shown via arts, Roderick paints strange Gothic images, pursues the science of music, and reads incessantly. He has no friends - another typical Gothic element, and though he is estranged from society, he is more at war with his family's feudal past, than with contemporary society. What is more important is the way Roderick manages his ancient legacy as the last male descendant, with the Gothic topic of his the family's feudal past haunting Roderick's pseudo-bourgeois present. This management is fairly ironic for one of a feudal (and brutal) background: he donates to charity money probably extorted from the peasantry, (or in some other uncertain way), but what is mostly ironic - and descriptive of the overlap between old and new orders - is the 'summons' he writes to his friend (the narrator) to join him, a summons from the heart, rather than from feudal authority. Finally, Poe makes Roderick a man deserving of pity more than curses by inflicting in him, a rather Gothic disease in its bizarrerie, the awful effect of super-acute senses, which forces on him the need of soft light, delicate clothing material, and the soothing effect of stringed instruments. Poe uses this man of sensibility to both to indicate the brutality of the his family's past - set as he is among the harsh interior decorations of decay and arrayed weaponry, and the current displacement of such a feudal regime in the modern world - shown by Roderick's pathetic attempts to adjust by being charitable, and pursuing the science of music.

As Roderick Usher is described as overlapping the old and new worlds, so the narrator too is suggested as overlapping. But like Roderick, the narrator belongs is a product more of his own world than the other, both of them struggling and failing to come to terms with his confrontation of that other world. Though the narrator feels the force of metaphysical elements in and around the House of Usher, he rejects these feelings as not fitting-in with the modern view of the universe. Roderick is aware of this reaction in his friend. and thus keeps quiet of what he may actually believe is going on - Poe thus creates tension and terror-through-obscurity as Roderick behaves secretively, or apparently mad as he makes superstitious statements about events and then immediately contradicting himself:

Due to the narrator's scientific scepticism, Poe prevents us from getting a full account of what is happening, and why. It also allows him to produce dramatic tension and confusion, by mixing supernatural and natural accounts in a contradictory manner. Also, the little information Poe does allow to be exposed assures us through the narrator that what is really going on is particular only to the members of the Usher family and no-one else, adding a sense of safety to the reader which - combined with the terror of the narrator's obscured perception of what is happening - produces a sense of the sublime in the story. The narrator, subdued into passivity by his inability to cope with his metaphysical experiences because of his rationality, can only record what happens - he is reduced to the chronicler of the final destruction of a feudal household. This is a typical Gothic element, seen also in Radliffe's The Italian, and in Lewis' The Monk.

Poe uses a particularly interesting Gothic convention - that of the split self - to add horror (explicit violence) to the story as well as terror (hidden violence). This is achieved through Roderick's sister. The terror comes from her single brief living appearance, and the effect it has on both men. The narrator, on seeing her, is overcome with dread and a stupor, for which - naturally - he is unable to explain, though certainly it is apparent that some supernatural aura surrounds her which Poe will call upon after (what might or might not be!) her death. Poe increases the Gothic effect of terror by giving her an unknown disease. The unknown element gives Gothic effect in its exotic characteristic, but mainly in its possible supernatural link to what Roderick calls the family secret. The nature of the disease also allows Poe to add two more Gothic elements: that of grave-robbing (which he fears the doctor's may do to investigate the unknown malady), and that of a suggestion of being buried-alive in the house' deep and sinister vault. The idea of the split-self is implanted by Poe when - on secreting Madelain's body in the dungeon - Roderick reveals that he and she are twins. The narrator is then used to add scientific realism (though not of course present scientific fact), by using his objectivity to notice the semblance between them, and the scientific theory that twins share a peculiar sympathy between them.

This split-self sharing of sympathies is used by Poe later to suggest what happens to his sister (though it is obscured what actually does happen), is reflected in the brother after her burial. For some days his appearance decays, the light in his eyes go out, he becomes even more agitated than usual, but most importantly he wanders the house - as the narrator describes in his blinkered way - like a lost soul. Poe uses obscurity again, achieved through the perceptual nature and effect of the narrator's inability to describe or comprehend what he experiences and sees, to multiply the horror of Madelaine's existence. If the narrator can be fully believed (and he cannot, because he has been constantly shown to be unreliable in perceiving and describing the supernatural), she has been buried alive by Roderick, and his wandering and anxiety are caused by guilt. But what seems more likely is that Madelaine has regained some quality of supernatural life, (reflected through some psychic link by Roderick's altered behaviour and appearance), and returns to address a metaphysical errand bound up with the family secret. This seems the most likely alternative to the narrator's account as such a barbaric act of live-burial seems beyond the ability of this man of sensibility. It also seems more likely because to break out of the coffin, through the copper-lined vault and the heavy re-enforced iron door would take nothing less than super-human force. Poe thus achieves the best of both worlds - by suggesting the idea of live burial he gets the horror of such an act, and by denying resurrection, he gets even worse horror when it is apparent that only a supernatural element could have secured her release. That she subsequently causes his death seems only to collaborate the idea that Roderick is the victim of some evil fortune linked to his family's past and the family secret. This idea is reinforced by the narrator's providential finding and reading of a book which coincidentally dramatises, action by action, the sister's entry to the house. Poe makes it clear that a supernatural force is now at work, and by using a romantic depiction of feudal life through Lancelot's heroic endeavours, he adds irony to the idea that this supernatural force is linked to just such a feudal (but now brutal and evil) past.

Lastly, Poe uses the Gothic element of the storm to add and confirm the hand of the supernatural in the fate of the Usher family. The storm is heralded by Usher as a living thing, and the narrator's description of it matches (for once - though still paradoxically denied) his friend's own description:

That the narrator sees this, and then calmly distracts his friend by reading a story to him acts to show how the modern world cannot and will not admit the existence of what it does not understand, and that the end of the feudal house of Usher (representing the old feudal order generally) no longer has a role in future events. Poe effectively undermines and writes off in his story - and graphically shown by the narrator's inability to perceive in his rational mind what pertains to - the old superstitious, brutal, patriarchal, feudal world.

I have shown how Poe uses Gothic elements to confound his narrator. Each occurrence forces him to attempt to attempt a refuge in his scientific rationality, but such attempts only lead him quicker to face-to-face encounter with the supernatural which his modern vocabulary is pitifully inadequate to cope with. Finding himself in such a dilemma, he can only accept his feelings while simultaneously refusing to see the supernatural forces which inspire them. These actions are a peculiar species of self-analysis which allows him to remain apart from the experience itself. He acts like a spectator of an avalanche - secure in a safe vantage-point - watching the overwhelming, unstoppable, destructive rush with an air of sublime inspiring detachment. The destruction of the house of Usher happens around this narrator, as if oblivious to him, and Poe shows that the supernatural - once a strong influence on the feudal world - holds no power upon the modern. It is not the end of a family-line we are shown, but the end of an era.