This chapter examines what many scholars consider the most accomplished and representative of Poe’s tales, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Starting with a summary of the main axes of interpretation in the story’s reception history, I proceed to an analysis of the tale’s main narrative strategy – one that I argue is prototypical of Poe’s narrative technique in his short fiction in general – namely, the unreliable narrator. Linking this device to the unstable architectonics of the house in the story, the chapter argues that the unreliability of the narrator lies at the heart of the text’s ability to choreograph active reader participation and pleasure. The chapter will also historicize the specific kind of unreliable narrators that Poe favors – those lacking a moral conscience or ethically-informed perception – within the paradoxes of antebellum culture. In doing so, the essay intends to demonstrate how combining formal and historical considerations is the most effective way to apprehend both the affective and cultural dimensions of Poe’s work.