Comparing Gothic Romanticism in The Fall of the House of Usher and Ligeia

Poe will never see his lost love again when uttering, "forget this lost Lenore," in line 84.

The Fall Of the House Of Usher is a short story written by Edgar Allen Poe in 1839. The short story is complexly written, with challenging themes such as identity and fear. Poe utilises many elements of the Gothic Tradition such as setting and supernatural elements to create a more mysterious story, and uses language to his advantage, employing adjective filled descriptions of literal elements that also serve as metaphors for other parts of the story.

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.

The downfalls of Roderick and the narrator juxtapose in order to emphasize the House’s true reign over the characters. The House began haunting the narrator from the moment he first viewed it. Yet it seems only to disturb him in subtle ways whereas Roderick, a resident of the House, seems to be degenerating at a pace similar to it. Just as the

Poe wrote in a time when American romanticism and gothic literature were in their prime. American romanticism grew in popularity because it went against the ideas of the church. It focused more on individualism and freedom. By turning away from the traditions in the 18th century, American romanticism targeted finding oneself through the forces of nature. Believed religion should be chosen, and not forced on from the public (A Look at American Romanticism). Gothic literature also played a major role in this era. Gothic literature almost always included decaying castles, secrets, mysterious passageways, and or hidden desires. It is also believed that the authors of gothic literature not only wrote haunting, thrilling stories but had underlying messages within the text. The authors express their deepest darkest thoughts in their writing. The scariest part is the writing relates to the audience, even in today's society. Which means the haunted inner workings of the authors, are also understood by most readers (Weinauer). Obsession and love drive people to commit unthinkable acts as portrayed in Edgar Allan Poe's short stories “The Tell- Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,”

Edgar Allen Poe's Use of Gothic Setting in The Fall of the House of Usher

Gothic elements are utilized in short stories to emphasize the literal and nonliteral meaning and to allow the reader to use their imagination. In the short stories, “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, and “Prey” by Richard Matheson, the following gothic elements are commonly seen: supernatural forces and entrapment. The authors implement these elements in order to allow the reader to use their imagination and to show the internal and external conflicts the character feels.

For example, ghosts roaming the hallways, or the dead coming back to life to haunt you. An example of the details Poe uses in his story is on page number 13 paragraph 1. ¨During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on a horseback... ¨ This shows how he transforms, sets the tone and mood of the story by using very bleak detail. This also shows how he creates a situation that may be frightening to others like riding on the back of a horse in a creepy place.

“The relationship of Poe’s work to the Gothic tradition... For Poe, both the stylistics and the thematics of Gothic fiction became a major aesthetic imperative, partly because he found in the Gothic a means of giving objective expression to the subjective demons at large in his short, sad life…” (Thomson, Voller, and Frank, 331) In essence Poe’s stories are almost as if they were journal entries of his own, since his characters and himself are often going through similar problems at similar times. He found comfort in this genre simply due to the fact that this is what he could relate to most.

ENGL104 Essay Choose two of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories and write a research essay that compares Poe’s employment of gothic literary techniques in both these short stories. In your essay you must define the term gothic literature and identify specific examples from the texts in order to justify your argument. Edgar Allan Poe was well-known for his use of gothic literature in his texts. Gothic literature can be defined as a form of text that employs dark and picturesque view, astonishing and theatrical narrative devices and an overall ambiance of terror, ambiguity, and exoticism.

Poe uses gothic stories about mystery and terror while mixing them with other genres such as romance to emphasise the suspense using

As a master of short stories of horror, Edgar Allan Poe is knowledgeable, learned and imaginative. He could skillfully manipulate the words in his literary works to create everything people can think of. The masterful use of the symbols, objects intensify the readers’ nerve as the typical elements of horror in Poe’s short stories, and therefore it is also a feature which makes Poe 's stories different from other writers.

Symbols are also used throughout to help understand the theme through the setting.Poe uses the setting to create an atmosphere in the reader's mind. He chose every word in every sentence carefully to create a gloomy mood. For example, Usher's house, its windows, bricks, and dungeon are all used to make a dismal atmosphere. The "white trunks of decayed trees," the "black and lurid tarn," and the "vacant, eyelike

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,

Poe’s writing style was much like that of Hawthorne’s, but drew from the darker side of romance creations. This gothic mood believed in the dark truths of the human heart, which are the ends and motivations for many of his stories. Human corruption and violence ends in murder in “The Black Cat”. Gothic writings move more into the supernatural side, which lets observer of the see a living person in the picture at his first, sleepy glance.