The Fall of the House of Usher

An unnamed narrator arrives at the ancestral mansion of an old schoolmate, who suffers from acute mental and physical decline. The visitor observes a pervasive atmosphere of decay in the house and learns of the family's hereditary collapse; the sick man's twin sister is stricken with a mysterious malady and presumed dead. After the sister's premature entombment, the friend's paranoia and sensitivity intensify, culminating during a violent storm when the buried woman reappears, leading to the deaths of both siblings and the physical destruction of the mansion, which sinks into the adjoining tarn. The tale explores themes of psychological erosion, familial entanglement, and the blurring of mind and environment.