The characters

     Reading the story we come across 3 main characters:

1) The narrator

2) Roderick Usher

3) Madeline Usher

     Roderick and Madeline are twins and they live together in an old  mansion. Roderick is an old friend of our narrator whom he came to visit : "...Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting... Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet really knew little of my friend." 

      Roderick Usher has direct description, because the writer expresses his own opinion and his own feelings towards him: "... I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!" The writer gives the detailed description of Roderick's appearance: " A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten." The detailed description helps us to imagine how did the main character look like. We know that Mr. Usher is ill and is going to die, because he suffers from hyper-sensivity to light, sound, taste and tactile sensations.

     Madeline Usher is Roderick's sister. She is also very ill. She suffers from the sicknes involving seizures. Roderick loved her very much and said, that she is his sole companion and the last and only relative on earth. The author also provides direct description of this character through the words of the narrator, especially in the situation when he spoke with Roderick about Madeline for the first time: " I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread--and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps." These were his feelings when he was going to enter her room and see how horrible and ill  she was looking. He was so shocked and Roderick was so upset, that the next few days they didn't even spoke about her.

     As for the narrator of the story, so, we don't come across his name or his description in the text. We only come across his deed, fellings and emotions and, of course, we understand that the narrator is the writer  E. A. Poe.

     It is difficult for me to say who is my favorite character of the story or whar character I like more or less. All of them are special and E. A. Poe managed to create such a brilliant story with the help of only three characters and all of them I like very much. It's pity that the Ushers deadly ill. I was impressed by such a tight twin connection between Roderick and Madeline and that he loved his sister so badly.