Analysis Of Edgar Allen Poe 's ' The House Of Usher '

To properly convey these complex themes, Poe employed the use of the Gothic Tradition. That is to say, he used elements such as the supernatural, and traditional gothic settings to create a mood in his story to help the reader become immersed in the story. The Fall Of The House Of Usher is told in the first person, with a nameless narrator who is never properly described. This helps the reader to feel part of the story, as it is as if they are listening to themselves describing the story. Poe has also set the story in a very claustrophobic way, including

A Sense of Tension in The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was a unique man that most people could not understand. Many recognize that he is a talented writer with a very strange and dark style. One of his most well known short stories is “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.” Many argue the different meanings of this story and how it is symbolic to his life. Poe was a very confused individual who needed to express himself, he accomplished this through the short story of “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.” Through this story, Edgar was trying to show the fear he had for him self, he did not understand him self so therefore Poe ran from his own personality and mind. This story enables the reader to take a look at Poe’s mind and

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, sets a tone that is dark, gloomy, and threatening. His inclusion of highly descriptive words and various forms of figurative language enhance the story’s evil nature, giving the house and its inhabitants eerie and “supernatural” qualities. Poe’s effective use of personification, symbolism, foreshadowing, and doubling create a morbid tale leading to, and ultimately causing, the fall of (the house of) Usher.

The main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s works are death, perversity, revenge and destruction. The settings he employed in the given short stories, especially in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat are Gothic. Therefore, naturally the mood of these stories would be dark and sepulchral. However, this is not a trivial employment undertaken to put the reader in a certain kind of zone.

(An analysis of the setting in The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe)

American Romanticism brought a new era to America and American literature. Within literature of the Romanticism era came the development of the gothic novel. Edger Allen Poe is one of the well-known gothic authors which arose from this era. Throughout Poe’s career he wrote many short stories following one theory which he created - that every aspect of a short story should lead to one single effect. For Poe many of his stories have the single effect of terror. In Poe’s story “The Fall of the House of Usher” he creates the single effect of terror through his description of the house, the entombment of Madeline, and Madeline’s appearance at the end of the story.

In the story “The Fall of The House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe he uses many different situations to scare the reader. Poe is a really good writer and especially when it comes to disturbing stories. He uses the season autumn to show a drastic change in weather. Overall the story has a downhill transformation from life to death. It also has a physical/spiritual transcendence.

Poe's depiction of the Usher mansion emphasizes the oppressive and daunting environment in which Roderick Usher falls into moral decay. The story takes place on a "dull, dark, and soundless day" when the narrator observes that the "clouds [hang] oppressively low" as he quickly approaches the "melancholy House of Usher" (Poe). Poe draws attention to the bleak area surrounding the mansion to enhance the somber mood he follows throughout the story. Through his word choices such as " oppressively low" and "melancholy," Poe constructs a feeling of distress and sorry for the characters residing in the house. Furthermore, as the narrator nears the Usher residency, he observes that the "atmosphere [reeks] from the decayed trees" and there seems to

“The Fall of the House of Usher (1939)”, arguably Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short story, is a tale centered around the mysterious House of Usher and its equally indiscernible inhabitants. These subjects are plagued with physical and mental degradation – the Usher siblings suffer from various abnormal ailments and unexplained fears, while the house itself seems to be tethering on the edge of collapse. The gothic elements in the story are distributed generously, and the plot is increasingly ridden with the supernatural as it progresses.

Edgar Allan Poe is an American poet from the early 1800s who has been regarded in many literary handbooks as “the architect of the modern short story” (Poetry Foundation). Since his death in 1849, Poe has become world renowned for his critical theories as well as his many haunting poems and short stories. But Poe 's work hasn’t always been as popular as it is today. In 1827, Poe published his first collection of poetry, Tamerlane, and Other Poems. Unfortunately, Poe’s first collection was unsuccessful and went virtually unnoticed by the public. Two years later, Poe published a second collection of poetry, which he titled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. Although this collection received slightly more attention than his first publication, it was still unsuccessful and seen as a failure. Poe’s third publication was released in 1831 and was yet another collection of poetry, ironically entitled Poems. This publication was significantly more successful than its predecessors, and in 1835 its success even landed Poe an editorship at The Southern Literary Messenger, a literary magazine based in Richmond, Virginia. Only a few years later, in 1839, Poe got a job as an editor for Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine. He stayed with the magazine for about a year before accepting another position in 1841 as the editor of Graham’s Magazine. This was the peak of Poe’s

The Fall of the House of Usher is a story “of sickness, madness, incest, and the danger of unrestrained creativity. This is among Poe's most popular and critically-examined horror stories” (Gordon). For example if you were to close your eyes while someone was reading the story you would see the house “decaying” in your imagination (Poe). From the start of the story the narrator’s strange “insufferable gloom” is introduced. He notes the darkness of his surrounding (Gordon). The stories are very deeply described and felt.

Faithful to the principles of the author, the first detailed words of description of the setting announce the decadent character of the composition- “All the main lines of action are supported by a systematic elaboration of detail” (Robinson, 79). The Fall of the House of Usher begins with the description of the place where all the facts of the story will develop: “It was a dark and soundless day near the end of the year, and clouds were hanging low in the heavens… through country with little life or beauty; and in the early evening I came within view of the House of Usher” (Poe, 22). At exterior levels, the presence of a crack crosses the whole structure of the house: “a crack making its way from the top down the wall until it became lost in the dark waters of the lake.” (Poe, 23). The dark aspect is present in the obscure interiors of the house: “Dark covering hung upon the walls. The many chairs and tables had been used for a long,

I studied the writings of Poe in 7th grade. We studied a series of his short stories and what intrigued me about his work, is how dark and somber are his stories. After reading an Edgar Allan Poe literature, it lingers in the back of your mind for days and sometimes longer. I think his stories help me to understand some of my own feelings at that time when I was young. I had lost my grandfather, whom I was so close too and loved very much. When he became ill, I prayed so hard, but he passed away. Loss of a love one bears heavily on a person and I can see why he wrote about it in many of his stories.

The Fall of the House of Usher, by Edgar Allen Poe, presents a remarkable example of Poe’s critical ability to converge cause and effect with a consistent tone. Poe’s work is one of totality, meaning every detail mentioned in the story, from the opening descriptions of the dank tarn to the crumbling rooms of the castle, to the frightful storm that foretells Madeline’s rise from the tomb and the bloodstained dress she wears when doing so so, all help to present the underlying sensation of terror that works to unnerve the reader, and ultimately sever the already fragile and tenuous sanity of Roderick Usher’s mind.