To begin, the narrator in, “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, does not use the typical, first person point of view where the protagonist tells a personal account of a crime that he or she has committed. Instead, the narrator is a character of which we know little about, who acts like a participant. One way the narrator acts like a participant that draws you closer, is when he helps Usher bury Madeline. The narrator responds to Usher’s request for the burial “I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest”(780). The way the narrator takes part in the burial takes a hold of your awareness. The reader can feel either compassion for the narrator in helping his friend in a time of need or suspicion in Madeline’s death. This makes you want to continue on reading to see what next could h

Also, the narrator admits to being a participant in Usher’s hysteria. The condition of Usher terrified him in a way that infects him. He could feel the influence of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions creeping upon him slowly. All of the characters suffer from the same type of mental disorder, insanity. The narrator, who is slowly but surely contracting the disease, wants to deny what he sees, hears and senses. The narrator tries to convince Usher that “These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon- or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of tarn” (782). The way narrator involves himself in the illness, shows how he continues to participate with the other main characters. By involving himself, the reader is drawn to finding out if he will contract it entirely or escape the madness.

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