• Zombies are mindless, unfeeling “living” corpses • Zombies feast on human flesh (or brains) • Zombies can only be killed by removing or destroying their heads (or brains) or by being consumed by fire • Normal people become zombies by being infected by a plague (disease), which can be passed on by being bitten by a zombie • Zombies are associated with the idea of a “zombie apocalypse” and the end of civilization.

• There’s no evidence that when Madeline returns from the grave that she’s intelligent. She is described as being emaciated and with fresh blood upon her burial gown. Poe writes: “For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold – then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother…” Madeline displays no sign of intellect and appears mindless and without emotion.

• While Poe does not come out and say that Madeline bites or eats her brother, Roderick, it can be inferred from the text. She bears him to the floor “a corpse.” Usher dies as his sister falls upon him. With the previous description of Madeline having blood on her – a reader can come to the conclusion that Madeline is attacking her brother with her teeth and claws.

• The third attribute is more difficult to find in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” There’s no evidence that Madeline is destroyed by having her head removed or destroyed. But the story ends with a lightning strike setting the house of Usher on fire and burning it to the ground. It’s inferred that the fire destroys the house and everything inside of it.

• Both Madeline and Roderick Usher are suffering from an unnamed ailment in the story. The disease causes them both to waste away and become cadaver like in appearance. “The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous luster of the eyes, above all things startled and even awed me,” the narrator notes of Roderick. Of Madeline, the narrator says: “The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of the partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis.” Are both the Ushers infected with a disease that turns them into the living dead? It is certainly a possibility as Poe spends a lot of time comparing both Ushers to corpses.

• With both Ushers infected with this wasting disease and haunting their world, their “civilization” – represented, of course, by the House of Usher. When Madeline falls upon her brother and the narrator flees into the storm – the House of Usher (already a decaying fragment of its former glory) is burned by flames and “civilization” is destroyed.

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• The National Assessment of Adult Literary found a steep drop in reading proficiency among college graduates during the 1990s. In 1992, 40 percent of college graduates scored “proficient” in literary, but one year later in 1993, the number dropped by 9 percent (to 31 percent).

• A 2004 study by the National Endowment for the Arts found that more than half of all U.S. adults don’t read any literature. The study also found that from 1982 to 2002 more than 20 million people stopped reading books for pleasure.

• A follow-up to the NEA report in 2007 found that 15-24 year olds watched TV on average two hours a day, but read less than 7 minutes per day. The report also found reading proficiency in that same age group fell 20 percent between 1992 and 2003.