6. Roderick Usher has become extremely sensitive to all that which affect the senses: to light, sound, smells, flavors, textures.
7. Usher believes that a family nervous condition will be the cause of his death, that he will die of madness.
8. Madeline is Roderick Usher's sistr. If she dies, Roderick will be the only member left of the Usher family.
9. Madeline is becoming increasingly weak; she suffers from a disease that makes her appear as if she were dead even though she is alive; when the narrator reaches the house of Usher, Madeline has been so decimated by her illness that she must now lie in bed and will probably die soon.
10. The narrator realizes that Roderick Usher has been overtaken by gloom and that he has lost his mind.
11. Roderick Usher can only hear music that is played on string instruments, particularly the guitar, which allows him to accompany the songs of his own mad creation. All other sounds are unbearable to his ears.
12. In the poem "The Haunted Palace", a parallelism is established between the palace, as the actual building described in the poem, and Roderick's head. The two windows through which first angels are seen dancing in harmony and then demons are seen are Roderick's eyes; the door is his mouth, from which wise words used to flow, but now only a madman's laugher emerges. The downfall of Roderick's mind, and of Roderick's family, brings the downfall of the actual house where he and his sister dwell.