What are some characteristics of the characters of Roderick, Madeline and of the house in "The Fall of the House of Usher."

Interestingly, "The House of Usher" is a double-entendre, meaning both the architectural structure that is the home of Roderick and Madeline and the lineage of the Usher name.  This mansion, once structurally sound, aristocratic, aesthetic, now parallels the family of Usher in its decrepitude.   Because the Ushers have kept their bloodlines too thin, Madeline and Roderick possess, mysterious illnesses; Roderick describes his malady as "a constitutional and a family evil " without remedy. In addition, the Usher line has ben reduced to Roderick and Madeline, who are twins, male and female counterparts of each other; Madeline, too, has a disease that "baffles the skill of the physicians."  Twin that he is, Roderick senses Madeline's condition, and he fears being separated from her as though this separation will deprive him, too, of life.

Madeline dies, Roderick moves her to a vault hoping to preven her being examined in an autopsy, His behavior becomes erratic and bizarre like the fissures in the house. His is a "sensitive nervousness," mirroring the cataleptical condition of his sister in emotion.  In hysteria the ailing Roderick says that his supersenative ears hear Madeline, and she is at the door. With preternatural energy he unbolts a door and in "death agonies" Madeline and he fall dead.  Like the family, the decaying house crumbles.