The story “The Fall of the House of Usher” tells how two childhood friends the narrator and Roderick Usher after many years Roderick writes to the narrator and ask for help because of his illness that runs through his family. The mansion that Roderick lives in has been there for generations that has been past down. The narrator is freaked out by the house because of the noises from the wind and the appearance of the mansion. Roderick’s illness is making him go insane as well as his sister Madeline Usher. As time went Madeline fainted and Roderick thought she had past away so he made her the burial as every other family member.…
Poe’s use of single effect in “The Fall of the House of Usher” is quickly seen through the setting from the first line of the story. Poe conveys a creepy tone when he describes the setting as a “dull, dark, and soundless day” leaving the reader with a eerie feeling. The author expresses a vigorous manner…
Death, murder, and depression are a few of Edgar Allan Poe’s favorite areas to write about. This is a vital reason his pieces are considered Gothic Literature. Gothic Literature, also referred to as “brooding romantics,” explored the capacity for evil. These writers arranged their works with emphasis on emotion, nature, and the individual. However, they did not center their matters on positivity as the other romantics did. Instead, they often included elements of fantasy and the supernatural. Poe’s short story, Fall of the House of Usher, contains all of the assets essential to a Gothic Literature piece, including grotesque characters, bizarre situations, and violent events.…
One could easily note the correspondence between the house and the Usher family. Poe uses the word “house” metaphorically, but he is also describing a real house. For it is that house that ultimately determines the fate of the family. From the beginning, the description of the house with its “fungi overspread the whole exterior” and “a barely perceptible fissure” represents something not “right” with…
"The Fall of the House of Usher," is one of the popular horror stories written by Poe. And it's remarkable plot, is lost in the production of the House of Usher . In the short story the plot is rather simple, Roderick and Madeline Usher are the last of the Ushers who are suffering from incurable diseases. Roderick suffers from "a morbid acuteness of the senses," while Madeline suffers from "..a settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, or frequent although transient affections of a partly cataleptical character.." This disease gives her a deathlike look, making her body lose its feeling, and loses consciousness. Madeline falls into her deathlike symptoms and is thought of as being dead. Roderick and his friend, carry her into the dungeon and keep her there in her coffin. Where she then awakens and frees herself. Covered in her own blood, she kills Roderick by being too frightened by the sight, and the unnamed narrator flees the house. Whereas in the House of Usher there are only a few of these events that take place.…
In the book, "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe, the house's…
The Fall of the House of Usher, written by Edgar Allen Poe is more then a spooky bedtime story. Published in 1839, it made itself famous before the Revolutionary War. This time period, often referred to as the American Renaissance, was the period during which many of the literary works most widely considered American masterpieces were produced. In the text, we get this description of the Ushers mansion, which almost seems to have a character of its own. The detail Poe put into the mansion, means that it is more then just a place to live but a symbol of what the people inside are like too.…
Poe uses his word choice wisely to make the tone of his short story more horrific to the reader. He uses his word choice in a frightful way to scary or make everything suspenseful like a horror film. An example of Poe’s suspensefulness to illustrate the tone:…
Roderick Usher is used by Poe to demonstrate the vampire theme in two ways. In the launch of the short story, Roderick is described with both physical and mental strangeness. His physical being is characterized as “terribly altered” (152), having a Hebrew nose, and with a ghoulish color of skin.…
Poe's use of characterization in the stories ‘The Black Cat”, “the Tell-Tail Heart”, and “The Cask of Amontillado”, allow Poe to demonstrate the madness that his characters typically go through. For example in “the Tell-Tale Heart” on page one Poe writes, “True!--…
Poe’s visual descriptions, whether through somber characterizations of the atmosphere or even the insufferable dysphoria during the long days with Rodrick, seem to connect Rodrick Usher and the House. The narrator does not realize as he describes the conditions of his surroundings that the House is a tangible and observable representation of Rodrick’s mental and…
At the beginning of the story, the narrator comes upon “the melancholy House of Usher”(Edgar Allen Poe 264). Immediately Poe’s description of the house sets the atmosphere for the story and begins building on Poe’s single effect of terror. “With the first glimpse of the building a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”at the mere presence of the house the narrator is over come with sadness(264). As the narrator goes into a deeper description of the house, the reader can begin to visualize the dark and scary house with rotting trees surrounding it and old molding bricks creating its structure. “Dark draperies hung upon the wall,” shows the house’s visual appearance and atmosphere do not get any clearer within. The interior of the house compliments the house’s dark and decaying outwardly appearance. The narrator describes the house as having “many darken intricate passages”with very large sad tapestries and ebon…
Poe characterizes Roderick with having a mental illness early in the story. In the letter to the narrator it states, “The MS. have evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness-of a mental disorder which oppressed him” (2). Roderick explains to the narrator about his illness through a letter in order to get the narrator to visit him. The mental illness is also shown, with the toll it partakes on Roderick’s physical appearance. The narrator describes him when he is younger with having, “an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison” to a more recent description of having, “ghastly pallor of the skin” (4). Poe adds more vivid descriptions about the character and compares his appearance from his earlier years. The traits of the past were more lively comparatively to the more recent characterization. The words “luminous” and “ghastly” are vast contradictions in his appearance. “Luminous” describes the bright light in his life while “ghastly” describes the frightful death within Roderick. The death description allows to show the formation from a healthy person to unhealthy with a mental illness. Lastly, Roderick talks to the narrator about the conceivement of the disease itself. He explains to him the reason of his illness is due to a “constitutional and family evil” (5). He is mentally ill because in his family, they connect in…
In the following essay, I intend to approach one of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories: “The Fall of the House of Usher” from a psychoanalytical perspective, while focusing on the main characters, namely Roderick Usher and his sister Madeline.…
Poe uses many diverse Gothic Elements to portray the setting and mood of the story. A gloomy setting, grotesque, mysterious, or violent events, and an atmosphere of degeneration and decay can characterize Gothic elements. As the story commences you get the allusion of an “abandoned chateau”, which builds a mood of mystery. Poe depicts the walls as “bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies.” This conveys a dark shadowy setting within the story. A dark shadowy setting is also conveyed through this story when the narrator references how the “chateau” was “Ann Radcliffe’s style”, “its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique.” The narrator also portrays the apartment to have “rich but decaying decorations”, comprising of “tapestries, trophies, and paintings”. Manifesting Gothic elements throughout the story, portraying setting and mood, diction is used to make the story more thought provoking.…