Usher sings the poem to his friend Victor, introducing it as a half-remembered, ancient melody about the state of his house.
Even the way Poe introduces the poem suggests this. The haunted palace in the ballad symbolizes the same thing that the house of Usher does: an ancestral home and name fallen into mental and physical decline. The poem “The Haunted Palace” is a ballad - a poem or song that tells a story, often one of tragedy. It is vital to understand this when reading the poem “The Haunted Palace.” The Haunted Palace The house itself is haunted it is a tangible, real example of the insanity and illness that has overtaken its inhabitants. The house of Usher has cracked walls, empty windows, dark rooms and gloomy halls that symbolize the last two Ushers’ descent into madness and eventually death. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the word “house” is synonymous with both the mansion and the family. Indeed, the Ushers seem to be ingrown into the house itself - everything from its cracked foundation to gloomy aspect reflects the state of the family that lives there.Īn outsider, Victor does not understand Usher’s presentiments, obsessions and strange connections to the literal mansion of his forefathers. Incest would certainly make the family ingrown, weak and mentally unstable. There is an old curse of illness and evil on the Ushers, and though never specified what exactly this evil is, it is hinted that it is incest. It is narrated from the perspective of Victor Reynolds, a friend of the last heir of Usher who visits to comfort him in his twin sister’s final illness. It tells of the fall - literal and figurative - of the House of Usher, an old family in a state of decline.
The short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is one of Poe’s most acclaimed, famous works. To understand “The Haunted Palace,” one must understand the context in which it appears.
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