House of Usher

Young Philip Winthrop yearns to marry the lovely Madeline Usher. One day, after a long horseback ride, he knocks on her castle door and receives a bleak reception.

The butler encourages him to turn around and go home, citing vague reasons why Winthrop cannot see his bride-to-be. That unwelcome advice is quickly repeated by the somber Roderick, the girl’s brother, who is afflicted with a strange form of hypersensitivity (“The slightest touch and we may shatter […] Any sort of garment other than the softest is agony to my flesh“).

Like any young man truly in love, Winthrop isn’t about to give up so easily. In the face of his insistence, Roderick reveals that all descendants of the Usher line face a premature death, doomed by a curse that has afflicted the family since time immemorial, and which continues to permeate the crumbling castle to this day.

Unwilling to accept such an outlandish explanation, Winthrop finally convinces Madeline to leave the mansion, which he believes has an unhealthy effect on her, an effect which can be traced back to the pernicious influence wielded by her brother.

As it so happens, the night before her departure, the young woman is struck with a sudden, mysterious illness that leads to her apparent death. Her body is placed in a coffin and taken to the family crypt. A despairing Winthrop is about to return to Boston when he discovers an unsettling fact that leads him to reconsider the tragic event’s veracity.