Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” The House of Usher ultimately falls because of the unnatural interdependence between brother and sister. Madeline is Roderick's "sole companion for long years," which is apparent because even the narrator, despite being friends with Roderick, knows next to nothing about him. The two have confined themselves inside their family home in a self-formed trap from which there is no escape. The two must stay together. Just as the mirror image of the house seen in the tarn cannot exist without the house itself, Roderick and his sister are two halves of the same whole and cannot exist without one another. Roderick himself seems to realize that he will "perish in this deplorable folly," which is potentially a reference to the obsessive and inescapable interdependence with his sister. Even if he attempts to break free of this relationship by locking his assumed-to-be-dead sister in the family crypt, however, he has already reached a point where the attempt itself is enough to cause the fall of his own being as well as the "house" or family line of Usher.