Fall of the House of Usher Worksheet

Directions: Use complete sentences for your answers. Incorporate the question into your answer. Refer to characters with nouns or proper nouns, not pronouns at the beginning of a sentence.

Obviously, this is a hard story to understand. This worksheet may help guide your thoughts about this story and help unlock the mystery behind this Edgar Poe story.

Comprehension

LC1 1. The theme is the message or main idea in the story. Sometimes, there are several major themes. Name one of the themes that Poe presents in this story.

LC1 2. List two details from the story that supports, or talks about the theme you described in question one.

LC2 3. Summarize the story in one or two short sentences.

Who:

Wanted to:

But:

So:

Then:

LC3 4. When a reader makes an inference, the reader grasps an important idea not directly stated in the text. Why didn’t Roderick Usher “save” Madeline once he heard her alive in her coffin?

LC3 5. Did Roderick have a motive for killing his twin sister? (Was there something he would inherit or something he would have to share with his sister?)

Analysis

LC5 6. The main character changes in short stories. Roderick Usher changes from the beginning to the end of the story; the narrator believes that Roderick is slowly going mad. Describe what was wrong with Roderick Usher. Describe how he changes.

LC5 7. There were strange circumstances surrounding Lady Madeline’s illness. Who was Lady Madeline? Describe the illness that she had.

LC5 8. What two reasons did Roderick give for wanting to put Madeline into the basement of his house once she apparently died?

LC7 9. In “Tell-Tale Heart,” the main character finally admits the foul deed he has done. In “Cask of Amontillado,” the narrator confesses after fifty years. After seven or eight days, Roderick Usher admits the foul deed he had done. What did he do?

LC7 10. After Roderick and Madeline are dead, the narrator runs out of the house and then watches it fall apart. I think this was Poe’s way of using a metaphor to show the family of Ushers “falling apart” as the result of this crime. Remember, they were the last of the Ushers and they had no children. The narrator is afraid and confused, much like the reader. But at looking back on the particulars of this story, it was an attempt by Roderick to commit a crime and to keep himself out of trouble by having his friend be a witness that Madeline, supposedly, died of natural causes.

Finally, here’s question nine: Give three similarities between Roderick Usher and the butler from the story, “Tell-Tale Heart.”

Thinking Criticallly

LT10 11. What could be another reason (beside what he said) for Roderick putting Madeline into the basement of his house?

LT9 12. The narrator draws a conclusion that their putting Madeline alive in the coffin was a big accident. What is wrong with this conclusion? Give one reason from the story that seems to support that this wasn’t just one big accident.