1. “The Fall of the House of Usher”
Ways to Interpret the Story
“The Fall of the House of Usher”

2. For Any Possible Interpretation
There must be
Evidence
Significance

3. Interpretation
It’s a story
of the supernatural
Evidence
Madeline breaks out of the tomb and comes upstairs, which would be physically impossible in the real world.
Significance
Not a very significant interpretation; anything can happen for no reason if it’s all just supernatural. It may say something about Poe’s preoccupation w/ the fine line between life and death.

4. Interpretation Evidence Significance
The story is a metaphor for mental illness/ insanity
Evidence
Roderick’s disintegrating house is several times compared to his head; “Haunted Palace” poem also supports this. The Narrator becomes less rational as the story progresses and even participates in the burial of Madeline when she’s still alive. The relationship between Madeline and Rod and that between his house and Rod seem abnormal. He’s may be unnaturally attracted to her and we know he never leaves the house. Roderick calls the narrator “Madman.”
Significance
The house may be having a bad influence on Rod, yet he never leaves it; this shows him to be self-destructive, like so many other Poe characters. It may be his guilt over an incestuous relationship with Madeline that causes Usher to murder her.
Finally, we know Poe was afraid of becoming insane (his sister Rosalie became mentally abnormal when she reached adolescence, and was never able to live on her own), and the story may be a working out of some of those fears.

5. Significance Interpretation
The story is a dream of the narrator’s; all 3 characters are part of the same psyche
Evidence
There are many illogical observations and distorted images in the story. The narrator comes under Roderick’s “influence” and is “infected” by it. Roderick and Madeline are preternaturally (unnaturally?) close with their being twins and having a shared sympathy, as well as looking strikingly alike though they cannot be identical twins. The narrator is Usher’s ONLY friend.   
Significance
 Freud (c. 70 years after Poe): the uncoordinated instinctual impulses are the “id”; the organized realistic part of the psyche is the “ego,” and the critical and moralizing function the “super-ego.” Madeline would be the id; Roderick the ego; the Narrator the super-ego (he goes to the House to try to help). Rod becomes less realistic and more disorganized as the story goes on; so does the Narrator.
This also relates to the metaphor for mental illness/insanity interpretation and helps support it: The mental condition is deteriorating.