Parts of a Whole

"The Usher family and the Usher mansion are analogous, - stained with time, used up. crumbling from within, awaiting collapse. Roderick Usher and his sister Madeline, identical twins, are almost two faculties aof the same soul, and they can be interpreted together as the soul of which their mansion is the body. All three decline together, and the inference is that the disappearance of one means the disappearance of the others, which in fact is what comes to pass. The Fall of the House of Usher is a mosaic of incidents, psychological attitudes, symbols, all cemented into place in a unified structure according to the prescription of an exacting and skillful art. Poe's theory of the short story demands unity of effect, and here he achieves it as nowhere else. (Buranelli p. 78,79)." - (http://watershedonline.ca/literature/Poe/pousher5.html)


There is a lot of evidence backing up the aforementioned idea that in Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, it is easily inferred that the house, Roderick and his twin sister Madeline are intertwined and form one being that lives, breathes and dies together.