What does the narrator learn about the relationship between Usher and Madeline after her death?
Answers
As the other answer to this question points out, the narrator of the tale realizes that Madeline and Roderick are twins when he sees her in her coffin. This realization heightens the connection between the two Usher siblings and, in a way, makes the possibility of an incestuous relationship (the traditional kind of relationship for the Usher family) between the two even more shocking. For instance, as twins, Roderick and Madeline share an even closer connection than most siblings. Thus, though an incestuous relationship between the two (which is what Roderick is deathly afraid of) is not technically any different than it would be between other siblings, it seems even more unnatural. As such, in some ways the fact that the two siblings are twins emphasizes the decline of the Usher family, as this extremely close relationship heightens (for both the reader and the characters themselves) the unsavory nature of the Ushers' "romantic" patterns.