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Every Death in the Fall of the House of Usher Explained

fall of the house of usher wiki

It is based on the short story The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. Verna disguised herself as a woman in need of a heart surgery. Victorine of course is all-too-eager to book the illegal surgery without the consent of her co-worker/girlfriend Dr. Ali Ruiz, and when she came to Victorine's house to confront the illegal surgery, Victorine throws a bookend and kills her on the spot. The first of the killings begin with the death of Prospero "Perry" Usher during a masquerade-esque orgy that he organizes, both to prove Frederick Usher, his older half-brother, that he's capable, and double down to also seduce his wife, Morella. This is much in part to Roderick hiding corrosive waste in the pipes as to avoid federal regulations.

The Fall of the House of Usher (1950 film)

fall of the house of usher wiki

Ruthless siblings Roderick and Madeline Usher have built Fortunato Pharmaceuticals into an empire of wealth, privilege and power. But past secrets come to light when the heirs to the Usher dynasty start dying at the hands of a mysterious woman from their youth. The title comes from Poe’s 1839 short story of the same name — but each of the eight episodes is jam-packed with adaptations and references to stories and poems from Poe’s entire body of work.

Episodes8

In a final fit of rage, she attacks her brother, scaring him to death as she herself expires. The narrator then runs from the house, and, as he does, he notices a flash of moonlight behind him. He turns back in time to see the Moon shining through the suddenly widened crack in the house. As he watches, the House of Usher splits in two and the fragments sink away into the lake. It is revealed that Roderick's sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into cataleptic, deathlike trances. Roderick and Madeline are the only remaining members of the Usher family.

Cast and Characters

In 1950, a British film version of The Fall of the House of Usher was produced starring Gwen Watford, Kay Tendeter and Irving Steen.

Madeline revives from her catalepsy, exits her coffin and returns to her shocked husband. The overarching narrative of The Fall of the House of Usher loosely follows Poe's 1839 short story of the same name, with Roderick recounting his decades-spanning tale to Auggie inside his decrepit childhood home. She appears near the narrator, but never acknowledges his presence. She returns to her bedroom where Roderick claims she has died.

In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the setting, diction, and imagery combine to create an overall atmosphere of gloom. The story opens on a “dull, dark, and soundless day” in a “singularly dreary tract of country.” As the narrator notes, it is autumn, the time of year when life begins to give way to old age and death. A mere glimpse of the Usher mansion inspires in the narrator “an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart.” Upon entering the house, the reader as the narrator navigates through a series of dark passages lined with carvings, tapestries, and armorial trophies. Poe draws heavily on Gothic conventions, using omens and portents, heavy storms, hidden passageways, and shadows to set the reader on edge. Roderick Usher is the ambitious and driven patriarch of the Usher family and CEO of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, which he acquired decades prior alongside his twin sister, Madeline. Since then, the long-standing success of the company has transformed the Ushers into a modern dynasty, also consisting of Roderick's six children, whom he expects the most from while failing to provide any form of fatherly affection.

Roderick later informs the narrator that Madeline has died. Fearing that her body will be exhumed for medical study, Roderick insists that she be entombed for two weeks in the family tomb located in the house before being permanently buried. The narrator helps Roderick put Madeline's body in the tomb, whereupon the narrator realizes that Madeline and Roderick are twins. The narrator also notes that Madeline's body has rosy cheeks, which sometimes happens after death. Over the next week, both Roderick and the narrator find themselves increasingly agitated. From Mike Flanagan, the creator of The Haunting of Hill House and Midnight Mass, a wicked horror series based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Some scholars speculated that Poe may have attached special importance to the fact that Roderick and Madeline are twins, noting that Poe previously investigated the phenomenon of the double in “Morella” (1835) and “William Wilson” (1839). Other scholars pointed to the work as an embodiment of Poe’s doctrine of l’art pour l’art (“art for art’s sake”), which held that art needs no moral, political, or didactic justification. During one sleepless night, the narrator reads aloud to Usher as eerie sounds are heard throughout the mansion. He witnesses Madeline's reemergence and the subsequent, simultaneous death of the twins. The narrator is the only character to escape the House of Usher, which he views as it cracks and sinks into the mountain lake. The Fall of the House of Usher is an American gothic horror drama television miniseries created by Mike Flanagan.

They’ll get the whole world — running Fortunato Pharmaceuticals, making more money than they could ever imagine, literally getting away with murder — all sans consequences. “When you’re done, at the end of it all… just before you would have died anyway, your bloodline dies with you,” Verna offers them. The two scrappy Ushers, who came into the world together, would leave the world together, atop a hill of riches, excess… and bodies.

In 1979 she is encountered after Roderick and Madeline Usher kill Rufus Griswold at a New Years Party. The Ushers left the murder scene, however, in need of an alibi, they visited a neighborhood bar. Verna appears to be the bartender and is initially friendly with the two, and drinks with them until the bar empties up. Once they're the only people left, Verna reveals that she knows about their murder of Griswold. Madeline is killed at the end of the show by her brother in the attempt to end their bloodline and in doing so she comes back from the dead, in a similar manner to her mother and kills her brother, thus collapsing the usher house and ending the family bloodline. Roderick and Madeline sold their souls the night they killed Fortunato CEO Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco) — the same night they met Verna, on New Year’s Eve 1979.

But, if they agreed to her terms, she could guarantee that they would not only get away with Rufus' murder but also rise to control Fortunato's billion-dollar painkiller empire and never be convicted of a single crime. From the start of the first episode of The Fall of the House of Usher, we know that all of Roderick Usher's children are dead. It's the how and the why of their deaths that plays out over the course of Mike Flanagan's new horror anthology series, now streaming on Netflix. Contemporary readers and critics interpreted the story as a somewhat sensationalized account of Poe’s supposed madness. (As a recluse, Poe often invited such accusations.) Later scholarship pursued alternative interpretations.

'The Fall of the House of Usher' Ending Explained: What Happened? - Esquire

'The Fall of the House of Usher' Ending Explained: What Happened?.

Posted: Fri, 13 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is an 1839 short story by Edgar Allan Poe. A music score was written in 1959 for the film by the directors' friend, composer Alec Wilder. His 1959 score was his second attempt (after the score for winds, brass and percussion which he did for them originally in 1929), and he composed it for a recording of the New York Woodwind Quintet and a percussionist, conducted by Leon Barzin.

We're a fan driven encyclopedia run and maintained by people just like you! Created by fans, for fans, The Fall of the House of Usher Wiki is dedicated to building a comprehensive and informative resource about the Netflix original horror limited series The Fall of the House of Usher. House of Usher was the first of eight Corman movies based on Poe's stories. The movie is also known as Fall of the House of Usher and The Mysterious House of Usher. In 2005, the movie was listed with the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." During a drug filled stupor, he believes he killed his partner's cat Pluto.

fall of the house of usher wiki

Roderick adored Lenore, Frederick and Morella’s daughter. She possessed the warmth and moral compass of Annabel Lee, he thought, the “best of her without a broken heart.” She’s the one who called 911 and saved her mom from her father’s brutality. Her death brings Verna no joy, but she does tell Lenore about all the good her mother does in the future thanks to Lenore’s heroic choice to save her — before allowing the youngest and kindest Usher to die peacefully. Once Roderick and Madeline were the only ones left in the bar after a long night of drinking, Verna revealed to the twins that she knew what they had done.

At first, the narrator ignores the noises, but Roderick becomes increasingly hysterical. Roderick eventually declares that he has been hearing these sounds for days, and that they are being made by his sister, who was in fact alive when she was entombed. A century before, a young man visits a bleak-looking mansion in the English countryside where his friend Lord Roderick Usher lives with his sister Lady Madeline.

Verna is not seen in flashbacks after this, until the 21st century, where the Usher children begin to die. Throughout the centuries, Verna has visited a number of controversial and well-known CEO's and big names, such as John D. Rockefeller, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Donald Trump. It can be assumed that throughout this time, she made "deals" similar to those she made with the Ushers. Roderick’s widow, Juno (Ruth Codd), inherits everything and completely dissolves Fortunato.

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