The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 1 A Midnight Dreary Explained- Longfellow, The Court Jester, And Everything You Need To Know About Poe’s Works

Edgar Allen Poe was a prolific writer of pain, grief, torture, revenge, and karmic retribution. Mike Flanagan’s genius rendering of all his works is a masterclass in storytelling. It is as if he is communing with the dead and stitching together Poe’s words in a way that he never expected but always intended. The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 1 introduces all of the major players, including the Ushers, C. August Dupin, Arthur Gordon Pym, child bride Juno, and a mysterious woman only seen in flashes. Here are all the easter eggs from his works and what it all means.

It’s December 31st, 1979, and The Wall is blaring while a grinning Carla Gugino looks on just before we cut to a funeral for three of Roderick Usher’s children. These three are not real Ushers in his eyes, but he mourns nonetheless. We are then treated to newspaper clippings, which let us know this will not be the last of the Usher deaths. Roderick Usher has summoned his old friend C. August Dupin to a dilapidated old house barely standing. Roderick claims he is there to unburden himself even though he has gotten away with everything yet again. In all their years knowing each other, Dupin has never been able to make a single charge stick. Roderick is offering him a chance to get a full confession finally.

Before he tells his story, Roderick offers Dupin expensive Cognac and refuses calls from his granddaughter, Lenore. It’s a theme that continues throughout the night. At one point, Roderick even condemns Dupin for doing the same with his family.

The story begins where most do as children. Madeline and Roderick Usher lived in the same house Roderick and Dupin sit decades later. Their mother, Eliza, was a devout woman who was bullied, abused, and tormented by her employer, Longfellow also for decades before she became ill mentally and physically. Refusing to go to a doctor, Eliza dies, and her teenage children bury her as Poe’s poem For Annie is recited. As with most of the things that haunted Poe in his real life, The Usher children’s mother didn’t stay dead for long, and she dug herself up and moved back into the house, with muddy feet and all. Roderick talks about her in reverent terms. She killed Longfellow with her last breath and last ounce of strength, and the Usher children covered it up.

Roderick thinks himself a good man because he never refused any of his children. He didn’t treat them the same, either. Six children with five different women, all with the same name and distant father. His first two children were allowed to live with him, and the others were given his name and his money but not his shelter. The only constant was perhaps tough love to the point of cruelty. He ruined them. He destroyed them little by little until they were nothing but monstrous empty shells.

Who is C. August Dupin?

Roderick’s frenemy, C. August Dupin, is a man we know little about in The Fall Of The House Of Usher. We know he is a prosecutor trying the case against the Ushers, but little else is known about his history with Roderick and Madeline. Considered the first fictionalized detective, Dupin laid the groundwork for Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. He first appeared in The Murders At Rue Morgue, and Poe wrote about him in two other stories. In his stories, he is a wealthy man who uses his analytical mind to help the police solve crimes. In the Netflix series, Dupin is a prosecutor.

For Annie Explained

For Annie was written for Nancy Heywood, who Poe credits with helping him “conquer the fever called living.” It is a metaphor for a lingering mental illness he probably never conquered, just kept at bay. In the poem, he claims he was a zombie who gradually came alive under her eye. In The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 1, Eliza is an actual zombie who summoned enough hatred from beyond the grave to kill Longfellow before burning out and dying a second time.

Poe compares himself to a corpse in For Annie. Eliza may not have been dead either when the children buried her. She just appeared to be. It is never stated, but the poem’s metaphors, combined with her rigid behavior at the end and the suggested abuse, point to Eliza being broken. She died at the end of a physical disease but also mental anguish. Longfellow destroyed her mind, body, and soul. We later learn he had been forcing himself on her for years, and the Usher children are his despite his refusal to acknowledge their birthright.

Poe was a melancholy man who wrote about grief and loss as much as death and revenge, although those things intermingled on more than one occasion. This is one of his rare poems that, although gloomy, isn’t all sad. Annie saved Poe, and he appreciated her ability to pull him out of his affliction. By choosing For Annie, Flanagan is pointing out that things could have been different for the Ushers, but they chose spite, anger, and greed rather than sympathy for mankind. It is a decision that will eventually destroy them.

Longfellow?

The wealthy man who originally owned Fortunato Industries and was Roderick and Madeline Usher’s father was named Longfellow. This is a nod to Poe’s real-life contempt for writer Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who he believed was a lucky hack. The mostly one-sided feud grew uglier with each positive review Longfellow got, and Poe eventually accused him of egregious plagiarism. Why Poe hated this man so much is unclear, but by making the vile man who hurt and abused Eliza and refused his own children, it is acknowledging that weird real-life event.

Who is Verna?

Carla Gugino’s enigmatic bartender and specter is Verna, who tempts the Usher twins on New Year’s Eve 1979 before appearing again at the funeral for Roderick’s children. Double Vision by Foreigner and Pink Floyd’s The Wall quietly play in the background, giving auditory clues to what is really happening. Verna is an opportunist with a buy now, pay later policy that we will learn more about in the coming episodes. From the looks of things, the price of success is steep. She is the harbinger of death and the deal-maker, as we see later in the season. The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 1, titled Once Upon A Midnight Dreary, gives us The Raven. Is Verna and the raven one and the same? Verna’s name is an anagram for raven. Like the raven she brings retribution always and is quoted nevermore.

The Court Jester In Roderick’s Car And Hop-Frog

Roderick buries three of his children and then collapses on the street after seeing a court jester inside his car. That jester is a reference to Hop-Frog, a story of brutal revenge. Flanagan is telling a specific story in The Fall Of The House of Usher. Like so many of Poe’s works, it is a dreary, rageful, guilt-stricken story where the past catches up to those who deserve it. In Hop-Frog, a man with dwarfism is taken from his home and forced to work as a court jester for a particularly cruel monarch.

After the King hurts his friend and fellow servant, Trippetta, Hop-Frog hatches a plan to get revenge. He convinces the King and his men to allow him to coat them in tar and flax and chain them up before setting them on fire. He and Trippetta were never seen again, and it is assumed they both escaped to live the rest of their life in peace. Hop-Frog’s vengeance is very specific and intended to remind everyone that the King was a slave owner and vicious dictator. Who the jester is in The Fall Of The House Of Usher, we will have to wait and see.

Nothing is what it seems in The Fall Of The House Of Usher Episode 1. This family appears to have it all from the outside. They are rich, powerful, and appear to be bulletproof. Like the cake that Roderick is served at his birthday party, they are not what they seem. They are awful, hateful, spiteful people who wouldn’t know happiness or altruism if it fell on them. Find all our House Of Usher coverage here.