Vicious Vocabulary
A verb meaning to destroy completely
What is annihilate?
This is how the narrator and Roderick know each other.
What is from being boyhood (childhood) friends?
What is his twin sister?
An adjective meaning very great age
What is antiquity?
What is in a vault?
(below/inside the house)
By the end of the story, the Usher house suffers this fate.
What is collapsing?
(being destroyed, falling apart, etc.)
A noun meaning a long, narrow crack or opening
What is a fissure?
As the story progresses, we learn this shocking fact about Madeline's entombment.
What is she was buried alive?
What is the mental decline of Roderick?
(Other potential answers: The decline of the Usher family, the destruction of the Usher twins)
A noun meaning the ending or downfall
What is dissolution?
What is oversensitivity?
What is that Madeline is still alive in her tomb?
(Other possible answers: Roderick's eventual death, heaven's light)
A verb meaning a violent or forceful pulling apart of something
What is rending?
What is Roderick dies from shock/fear?
The house starts to affect the narrator in this way.
What is being more and more paranoid/fearful/erratic?
An adjective meaning loud, excited, and emotional
What is tumultuous?
While reading to Roderick to try to calm him down, the narrator becomes unsettled by this.
What is hearing sounds from the story in real life?
Usher says this is his biggest fear.
What is being frightened to death?
(will also accept "fear")