# E.A. Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-a-poes-fall-of-the-house-of-usher/240897>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [April 19, 2004, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-a-poes-fall-of-the-house-of-usher/240897 "2004-04-19T21:45:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2004, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/e-a-poes-fall-of-the-house-of-usher/240897/21 "2004-04-22T08:28:34Z")

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> [@TWDuke](#):
>
> Yes, on an an obvious and superficial level that’s all it says. But when someone says a family tree has no branches, it certainly can suggest something else. And when a man hastily entombs his “tenderly beloved sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth” with whom he shares “sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature” and, despite the fact that he hears her moving in the coffin, leaves her there for days, doesn’t it suggest some seriously conflicted emotions? Perhaps he’s pulled between what he sees as two horrible, unnatural alternatives. Perhaps he overcompensates by turning to abstract art and music in denial of the fleshworld, but like his ancestors before him becomes ever more sensitive to physical sensation. Perhaps also he has something to hide, which explains his aversion to a doctor examing the body. But she will not be denied. She comes to him, dressed in white, and claims him once and for all, body and soul.

Doctor Freud will see you now…

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