incest in "the fall of the house of usher"?

I am reading a paper by a student in which he claims that the comment Poe makes about the Usher family demonstrating “a direct line of descent” means that there is the suggestion of incest among members of the Usher family. I always took that phrase pretty innocently: Usher has no sons, so there are no more Ushers after him (and Madeline).

Am I missing something? Is there any evidence whatsoever that incest among Roderick and company exists? Does “direct line of descent” suggest incest somehow?

Wha? I thought the whole dang story was about incest!
What class do you teach? At what level? If this student isn’t remarkably bright, and you haven’t even hinted at this theme in the story while teaching it, the boy has done his homework (whether he picked up on this by himself, simply didn’t understand the story and researched it further online and discovered this, which is totally legit, or cut and pasted something right off the internet, I don’t know).

Wait, you teach English, and you didn’t know that The Fall of the House of Usher was about incest?

Well I always thought Roderick was a wee bit too torn up over Madeline’s death. I’d have to pull the story again but there does seem to be things alluded to on Madeline’s side that she was MORE than just her bro’s housekeeper.:wink:

The story has subliminal incest, maybe. But the phrase, “direct line of descent” does not mean anything incestuous. I am a direct descendant of my father, & an indirect descendant of my uncle. That’s all the term means—presumably even in Poe.

Ditto! I saw the movie (in Jr High) before I read it and it’s pretty damn obvious in there.

You can’t judge Poe’s work by movies with the same titles. There were no dueling wizards in “The Raven”. On the other hand, “that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent,” is suggestive. Their family tree doesn’t branch, and ends with a brother and sister who never leave the house. Would a forbidden lust help explain why Usher would leave his “beloved” sister alive in a tomb? But I don’t think anything in the story proves that Roderick and Madeline were actually doing it, and I don’t think it’s “about incest” anymore than it’s about abstract art.

Usher, that degenerate prick,
Harbored fantasies twisted and sick
'Til a flaw in the mansion,
Much worse than my scansion,
Covered Usher and sister with brick.

Wasn’t his sister dying of some strange disease as well? It’s been so long since I read the story.

Yes, although she may not have been dying fast enough for all concerned.

Here’s a perfectly legal link to the story:

http://www.bartleby.com/195/10.html

Oh thank you so much.

Um…yes. And frankly, I’m still not buying it. I still see nothing in the story that is evidence that it exists. That Roderick lives in the same house as his sister isn’t evidence as far as I’m concerned.

Oh well. It never even entered my mind.

I have on professor who insists there is an incestual subtext. I have another professor who thinks it’s a load of bull…and as for me, I see sexual subtext everywhere, so I doubt my own interp…I guess that AFAIC, as long as a student can offer more evidence then “direct like of descent”, it’s a valid interp…

I can see not buying the incest interpretation, but you’ve never even heard of it before? Wow.