In many respects Roderick in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” appears to be mad, yet at the end of the story he calls the narrator a “madman,” the very character that most readers identify with as being sane. If madness is a part of this story, what kind of statement does Poe seem to be making about it? Just how is he defining it and who is really “mad” in the story?
