Poe's House of Usher

"Catalepsy: Complete trance-like mental detachment."

Symptoms include:rigid body, rigid limbs, limbs retain position when moved, loss of voluntary muscle control, and no response of recognition. See also "what appears to be death"

from WrongDiagnosis

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is pure Poe being Poe, which means it's good but complex. There are so many different and equally spiraling outward threads of meaning that picking one is not easy. But madness is the central issue in "House of Usher" the only hard question is what type of madness and what is inducing it.

The madness is caused by pressure, so much pressure that Roderick has lost his mind. The pressure comes from everything, really though everything pressures this man so much so that he has retreated to hermitage. The madness does not cease though, and so willing is he to end the suffering he sees ending the line of Usher as the only way. So Roderick invites an old friend, the narrator, over to help him kill his twin sister. The quote at the top is what Roderick knows, that she will appear dead and this condition will fool others. Enlisting the narrator to help move he body works until she breaks free and kills him by dieing on top of him.

To be honest who wouldn't be almost shocked to death if this came running after them.

So the Madness consumues and culminates for Roderick in the dead coming back to life to be with him, hinting that he will never be free of the curse of the House of Usher.

The real treasure in this story is that when summed up it amounts to little more than a ghost story, but in the hands of Poe it turns into a Gothic masterpiece.


P.S. While looking I found a comic book of the fall of the house of usher.
http://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2009/01/fall-of-house-of-usher.html