The fall of the House of Usher
In Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher the narrator receives a letter from his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher who asks for his help. The protagonist goes to the house of Usher, dingy and dilapidated, and realizes that his friend is sick: Roderick is pale, emaciated and very nervous . His twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and Roderick later informs the narrator that she has died and insists that she be entombed for two weeks in a vault in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put the body in the tomb, and he notes that Madeline has rosy cheeks. They inter her, but over the next week both Roderick and the narrator find themselves becoming increasingly agitated for no apparent reason. One night a storm begins and sounds are heard somewhere in the house. The narrator attempts to calm Roderick but he becomes increasingly hysterical, and eventually exclaims that these sounds are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed. The bedroom door is suddenly blown open to reveal Madeline. She falls on her brother, and both land on the floor as corpses...