Referring to Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher," what does this question mean: "What is the situation that revolves around the characters?"?

The question "What is the situation that revolves around
the characters?" is a fairly standard literary question that aims at directing a student
to a specific aspect of literary criticism, namely, how the situations of the plot
affect and involve the characters. Firstly, examine the definition of title="Situation: Random House Dictionary on Dictionary.com"
href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/situation">situation
as stated by Random House Dictionary (on Dictionary.com), which may be a condition, a
case, or a plight as well as a state of affairs or a combination of circumstances.
Therefore one paraphrase of what the question is asking can be, "What is the state of
affairs or plight that revolves around the
characters?"

Secondly, the phrase revolves
around is actually a metaphorical figure of speech, seeing that plights and
states of affairs don't actually move in circles around characters. This metaphorical
figure of speech is in fact an idiom, which is defined as an expression that has a
nonliteral meaning that can be understood based upon cultural agreement of meaning
(e.g., "You're a Babe Ruth!"); in other words, what revolves around
means in America is not likely to be what it means in Korea or elsewhere. [Which,
incidentally, is why idioms give learners of a second language so much difficulty: such
learners don't have the cultural background necessary for understanding idioms, tied as
they are to cultural meaning.]

According to McGraw-Hill
Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, the culturally agreed upon meaning of
the idiom revolves around is something that is primarily concerned
with or centered upon someone (or something). In other words, a situation that revolves
around characters is a state of affairs or a plight that is centered upon or primarily
concerned with the characters. Therefore a paraphrase of the question might be, "What is
the state of affairs or plight that primarily concerns or centers upon the
characters?"

Thirdly, since no particular characters are
singled out, it must be assumed that the question refers to all major characters, who
would be the unnamed narrator, Roderick Usher and Madeline Usher. So what situation
(state of affairs or plight) revolves around (centers upon or concerns) all three
characters? Well, Roderick sought the narrator's company as his guest at the House of
Usher because he was suffering some terrible nervous, psychological disturbance.
Roderick was suffering this disorder out of concern for Madeline's deteriorating health.
He is concerned for Madeline because he feels an impending and horrible doom coming upon
the family and manor of Usher. Putting it all together, it is now possible to say that
the situation revolving around the characters is the impending doom to the House of
Usher, both to the family of Usher and the manor house of Usher.