Thus, Roderick Usher does not isolate himself at the beginning, since he asks in a letter to his friend, the narrator of the story, if he could come and visit him. This is Usher's final attempt to rid himself of the fear that has engulfed him, as the purpose of the narrator's visit is to bring light to Usher's dark house. A consequence of Usher being on a balance between sanity and madness is that he has two sides to his personality, a solemn side, when he is rational, and a hype side, when fear overcomes him. We see this when Roderick Usher says: “It was […] a constitutional and family evil, […] a simple nervous affection, […] which would doubtless soon pass” (Poe 877), speaking of his illness to the narrator . This phenomenon causes many contradictions in his words and actions, and defines Usher, in contemporary terms, as bipolar..