The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher, in my interpretation, fits perfectly into Todorov's description of the Fantastic.  Mounting tension plays a key role in developing the real and supernatural duality throughout the story.  The "timely" collapse of the house at the end of the story seems very supernatural, however, Poe set up a real explanation with his description of the fissure in the wall at the beginning of the story. Other dualities that enforced the Fantastic in the story involved the narrators reading of Mad Trist.  The sounds heard during the reading were quite unnatural and arguably supernatural.  However, the text offered a literal real explanation for the sounds as Lady Madeline escaped from her coffin and out of her cell.  One could also interpret the sounds heard to be a reflection of the narrators weakening mind and his thoughts and imagination overpowering his sense of reality.  He became quickly engulfed in the story in his weakened state and truly believed he heard the sounds.  When Lady Madeline came to kill Usher, he truly lost his mind along with Usher in the home.  There are many parallelisms n the text as well.  Most notably is the parallel between Usher, his family line, and the house.  The house seems to reflect Ushers mental state in its appearance and radiance.  They are so similar throughout the text, and develop side by side to such an extent that one could conclude they are in fact two manifestations of the same entity.  The parallelism ends at the end of the story, when Usher dies and the house collapses at the same time.