Nowhere is the value of indirection in the maximizing of suspense more evident than in the last sequence of the story. Having established the literary context of the narrative, Poe then counterpoints the reading of a rather trite medieval romance against Madeline’s actual return from the crypt. At the simplest level, “The Mad Trist” tale is a suspense-building device that magnifies the reader’s excitement as the reader awaits Madeline’s certain reappearance. Thematically, it suggests a parallel—either straight or ironic, depending on the reader’s interpretation—between the knight Ethelred’s quest and Madeline’s return from the tomb. Reinforced by the violent storm, the narrator’s frenzy, and Usher’s violence, Madeline’s return, her mutually fatal embrace of her brother, the narrator’s flight, and the disintegration of the house itself fuse into a shattering final effect, which is all that Poe claimed he wanted, and a provocative insight into—what? The collapse of a sick mind? The inevitable self-destruction of the hyperintroverted artistic temperament? The final end of aristocratic inbreeding? Or incest? Or vampirism? Or the end of the world?