Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher; More then Meets the Eye
The Fall of the House of Usher written by Edgar Allen Poe was written in 1839, as the age of enlightenment and reason were on the rise. It is a horror gothic story, with an atmosphere of evil, as well as a sublime that overwhelmed the reader with fear. The Fall of the House of Usher is not only a dark romantic, written with a great deal attention to imagery, enhancing the parallelism and symbolism that arises as a correlation between the house the Ushers live and the family itself.
When first beginning the story, the dark and gloomy imagery is interring, leaving the reader with a desire to continue reading. However, it soon becomes apparent that special attention is casted on the condition the house is in:
“Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web work for the eaves… there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of pars, and the crumbling condition of individual stones…the fabric gave little token of instability… eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barley perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.” (Poe, 25)
The house its self could be drafted as a character, as a great deal of attention description was put into it. However the house its self is not the only dynamic that Poe focused on when writing, The Usher Family was drafted to be complex as well. Madeline Usher was defined by her illness: “the disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of partially cataleptically character, were the unusual diagnosis. (Poe, 28) It was Roderick Usher however that was the most dynamic. Once a healthy man, is now a “mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these
The Fall of the House of Usher written by Edgar Allen Poe was written in 1839, as the age of enlightenment and reason were on the rise. It is a horror gothic story, with an atmosphere of evil, as well as a sublime that overwhelmed the reader with fear. The Fall of the House of Usher is not only a dark romantic, written with a great deal attention to imagery, enhancing the parallelism and symbolism that arises as a correlation between the house the Ushers live and the family itself.
When first beginning the story, the dark and gloomy imagery is interring, leaving the reader with a desire to continue reading. However, it soon becomes apparent that special attention is casted on the condition the house is in:
“Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web work for the eaves… there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of pars, and the crumbling condition of individual stones…the fabric gave little token of instability… eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barley perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.” (Poe, 25)
The house its self could be drafted as a character, as a great deal of attention description was put into it. However the house its self is not the only dynamic that Poe focused on when writing, The Usher Family was drafted to be complex as well. Madeline Usher was defined by her illness: “the disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of partially cataleptically character, were the unusual diagnosis. (Poe, 28) It was Roderick Usher however that was the most dynamic. Once a healthy man, is now a “mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these
Cited: Page Stott, Jon C. and Raymond E.Jone. The Harbrace Anthology of Short Fiction. Tronto, Ontario: Nelson Education Ltd. 2012. Print. Text used: Edgar Allen Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher. Pages 23-26.