Likewise, the poem "The Haunted Palace," which Poe places almost exactly in the center of the story, is similar to the House of Usher in that some "evil things" are there influencing its occupants in the same way that Roderick Usher, the author of the poem seems to be haunted by some unnamed "evil things." After he has finished reading the poem, Usher offers another of his bizarre views; this time, he muses on the possibility that vegetables and fungi are sentient beings — that is, that they are conscious and capable of having feelings of their own. He feels that the growth around the House of Usher has this peculiar ability to feel and sense matters within the house itself. This otherworldly atmosphere enhances Poe's already grimly threatening atmosphere.
One day, Roderick Usher announces that the Lady Madeline is "no more"; he says further that he is going to preserve her corpse for two weeks because of the inaccessibility of the family burial ground and also because of the "unusual character of the malady of the deceased." These enigmatic statements are foreboding; they prepare the reader for the re-emergence of the Lady Madeline as a living corpse.
At the request of Usher, the narrator helps carry the "encoffined" body to an underground vault where the atmosphere is so oppressive that their torches almost go out. Again Poe is using a highly effective gothic technique by using these deep, dark underground vaults, lighted only by torches, and by having a dead body carried downward to a great depth where everything is dank, dark, and damp.
After some days of bitter grief, Usher changes appreciably; now he wanders feverishly and hurries from one chamber to another. Often he stops and stares vacantly into space as though he is listening to some faint sound; his terrified condition brings terror to the narrator. Then we read that on the night of the "seventh or eighth day" after the death of the Lady Madeline, the narrator begins to hear "certain low and indefinite sounds" which come from an undetermined source. As we will learn later, these sounds are coming from the buried Lady Madeline, and these are the sounds that Roderick Usher has been hearing for days. Because of his over-sensitiveness and because of the extra-sensory relationship between him and his twin sister, Roderick has been able to hear sounds long before the narrator is able to hear them.
