The nameless narrator of the short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" arrives to the home of his childhood friend Roderick Usher in the opening scene. having gotten a letter from him asking for aid and complaining of being sick. Hypersensitivity and an obsessive worry with having a terrible illness are among Roderick's symptoms.
It is discovered that Madeline, Roderick's twin sister, suffers from a similar condition and experiences death-like trances.
Roderick claims to the narrator that he thinks his home is sentient and that this sentience derives from how the masonry and vegetation are arranged around it.
