Plot summary

Having just arrived in Los Angeles from his home in New Orleans, Truman Jones is meeting with elderly Roderick Usher at his secluded mansion in order to learn about poetry from a master. While Roderick in return doesn't think he can offer him anything of value that couldn't be learned from textbooks, he invites Truman to stay at the mansion for however long he will be in Los Angeles. Truman will learn that Roderick shares the mansion with his ailing twin sister, Madeline Usher. The family doctor believes she will not survive to her imminent next birthday, for which Roderick has arranged a masquerade party. Roderick implies that Madeline's imminent passing means more to him than the loss of a loved one. In their time together, Roderick and Truman increasingly talk about death, not even so much in Madeline's context, but in general and in relation to it as a theme in poetry. That talk is foreboding for Truman's remaining time at the House of Usher.—Huggo