Degrading cities are usually filled with only a handful of inhabitants still clinging to the life they once had. The houses collapse. Quality of life decreases. People become unstable due to their inability to provide for themselves and their families. We have seen it everywhere: cities become relics and people become charity cases. When the going gets tough, the tough get going; however, the inhabitants who choose to stay rewrite their endings. Edgar Allan Poe's use of imagery portraying decay in “The Fall of the House of Usher” serves to establish the final fate of the two main characters. Roderick Usher is a victim of circumstance. The House he has known all his life seems to have turned against him. Poe illustrates Roderick in a manner that mirrors that of the undead: “cadaverous complexion,” “lips…thin and very pale,” and “silken hair.” Not only is Roderick's physical appearance deteriorating, but his mental stability is also "inconsistent." His psychological health worsens due to the culmination of disturbing events in his life. According to an analysis by GR Thompson, the story presents a conflict constructed by Poe “between reason and irrationality” (qtd. in Timmerman). At the beginning of the story, Roderick was suffering from “acute physical illness” and “nervous agitation” that appear to be mostly self-inflicted. These then turn into “hysteria contained in all his behavior” as his sanity declines even further. Roderick begins to lose touch with reality and slips further into the clutches of fear and confusion. This rapid decline in Roderick's mental health is made evident to the reader by the narrator's growing fear of him and what will become of him in the imminent future. “The......medium of paper……k and the narrator's escape throughout the story with images of abandonment such as the “crack” or “snap of doom” in the House, Roderick's “peculiar physical conformation”, and the tremor that sits “on [the narrators]… heart [like] and nightmare.” These are among the many images Poe provides to stimulate readers' imaginations by foreshadowing the final ending of the two characters' stories. Works Cited Cook, Jonathan A. "Poe and the Apocalyptic Sublime: 'The Fall of the House of Ushers.'" Articles in Language and Literature 48.1 (2012): 3+. Literary Resource Center. Network. April 14, 2014. Timmerman, John H. “House of Mirrors: “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe.” Papers on Language & Literature 39.3 (Summer 2003): 227-244. Rpt. in Criticism of Short Stories. vol. 111. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Network. April 14. 2014.