The Fall Of The House Of Usher

“House Taken Over” is exceptionally shorter than “Usher” and incorporates modern English and a calmer mood to express the Magical Realism in the story. Cortazar’s text is much less intense than Poe’s and uses far more ordinary and recognizable characters and setting. He tells the story of a brother and his sister Irene and the activities they do in their daily life. The plot is then shifted towards fear with the addition of the fantastic events of the supernatural beings. “I went down the corridor as far as the oak door, which was ajar, then turned into the hall toward the kitchen, when I heard something in the library or the dining room. The sound came through muted and indistinct, a chair being knocked over onto the carpet or the muffled buzzing of a conversation. At the same time or a second later, I heard it at the end of the passage which led from those two rooms toward the door” (39). The characters in “House” have an unimpressed tone when they learn of the otherworldly creatures and try to ignore it, indicating that the story is indeed written in the style of Magical Realism. “‘I had to shut the door to the passage. They’ve taken over the back part.’ She let her knitting fall and looked at me with tired, serious eyes. ‘You’re sure?’ I nodded. ‘In that case,’ she said, picking up her needle again, ‘we’ll have to live on this side’”

Some similarities between the two short stories are 1. Both stories have brother and sister siblings. In the House Taken Over, the brother and sister both share the mansion. In The Fall of The House of Usher, it talks about Usher and his sister and how Usher locked his sister in a coffin while she was still alive, “We have put her living in the tomb!” (Poe 29). Another

Similarly, the setting in both stories, the stories include two siblings-Madeline and Usher, Irene and her brother-who live in a very bygone, spacious, and lonely house.This can be seen in “House Taken Over” where it says, “We liked the house because, apart from its being old and spacious…”(1). Irene’s brother narrated how vast the house was and he later mentions that even though it is so big only two people live in it while it can occupy eight or people. Another similarity is that both houses were owned in the family through many generations. This idea can be seen in “House Taken Over,” where Cortazar explains, “ ...it kept the memories of great-grandparents, our paternal grandfather, our parents and the whole of childhood (1). Cortazar’s short

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” shows the traits of two genres, gothic literature and magical realism. Even though both of these literary works were made in different time periods they show how the effects of fear and loneliness can affect someone. The setting of House Taken Over and House of Usher is similar as they both take place in a house and their interior is bleak, but the two settings are different as one house is surrounded by a decaying forest and the other house is in a neighborhood.

The narrator of the story stated that Roderick's fear might have been linked directly to the house. He explained how he is "enchanted by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth." Roderick explained his feeling that he was stuck in the house and that horrible things would happen to him if he left. The narrator implied that Roderick's mental condition might have been relieved if he would leave the house and face his fears. However, because of

All these things put together and a few others help to connect the house to Roderick and Lady Madeline. When the narrator first sees Roderick after a long period of time, he thinks that he resembles that of a corpse. Then Roderick tells him the reason for his appearance, why he looks so bad. He said he had an illness that was a “morbid acuteness of the senses.” The word morbid, when used anywhere, has very strong meaning and it is of the negative type. He uses the word tortured when he is describing his eyesight and says that even the slightest sound is almost unbearable. Thinking about having all of these symptoms put together is a very bad picture to paint in your mind. His condition, in this case, is very comparable to that of the condition of the house.

In the story, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, there are many mysterious happenings that go on throughout the story between the characters Roderick Usher and the narrator. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe uses themes such as madness and insanity to connect the house back to Roderick Usher. In the “Fall of The House of Usher”, the narrator goes through many different experiences when arriving to the house. The narrator’s experiences start out as almost unnoticeable in the beginning, turn into bigger ones right before his eyes, and end up becoming problems that cause deterioration of the mind and the house before the narrator even decides to do anything helpful for Roderick and his mental illness. In “The Fall of The

While reading “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I couldn’t help but feel a constant overwhelming sense of dread. The root of this could have come from the story’s dark setting deep within an “haunted forest” or from Brown’s mysterious “Devil”-esque companion. While I read, another story came into my mind; the story of the “Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. In Poe’s tale the same heart pounding emotion can be felt as he describes the reunion of two friends within “the House of Usher.” With the manors “eye-like windows” and “sorrowful impression,” Poe wastes no time in setting the Gothic mood. Through their distinct writing styles Hawthorne and Poe establish a common Gothic theme within their stories.

Setting places the character and the action to a certain place so that the reader can visualize what is happening in the story. Setting is one of the most obvious similarities between these two stories is their settings. They are both set in dreary, dark, ominous houses for most of the action of the story. One of the houses is set at midnight and the witching hour, and the other house is in disrepair, and is almost disintegrating around the people who live there. Consequently, settings virtually always have implications on the story’s tone. The dark, dreary houses give the stories foreboding tones that add to the horror. Already Poe employs the same setting and tones in these stories that put chills down the readers spines, but they also show the similitude in his writing style.

Setting places the character and the action to a certain place so that the reader can visualize what is happening in the story. The setting is one of the most obvious similarities between these two stories is their settings. Dreary, dark, ominous houses are the settings for most of the action of both stories. “The Tell-Tale Heart”’s action occurs at midnight and the witching hour. “The Fall of the House of Usher”’s house is in disrepair and is almost disintegrating around the people who live there. Consequently, settings virtually always have implications on the story’s tone. The dark, dreary houses give the stories foreboding tones that add to the horror. Already Poe employs the same setting and tones in these stories that put chills down the reader's spines, but they also show the similitude in his writing style.

The narrator comes to the House to aid his dying friend, Roderick Usher. As he arrives at the House he comes upon an “aura of vacancy and decay… creating a pathologically depressive mood” (Cook). The state of the House is daunting to the narrator – he describes it with such features as “bleak walls”, “eye-like windows”, “rank sedges”, “decayed trees”, and “an utter depression of the soul”. These images foreshadow a less than pleasant future for the narrator and his dear friend Roderick. Poe continues to foreshadow the narrators turn of events with a description of the House’s “dark” and “comfortless” furniture. The House becomes a living hell for the narrator as he watches Roderick’s condition evolve and struggles to understand the mystery tying unfortunate events together. However, as the narrator gradually becomes more enveloped in Roderick and the House’s malady, he seems to develop a malady of his own. While the narrator’s illness is less prominent than that of Roderick and his sister Lady Madeline, the sicknesses are one in the same.

While staying with his friend, the narrator seems to develop some strange symptoms. As the narrator spends more time in the house, he has strange thoughts which make us question his sanity. After Roderick’s sister dies, Madeline, the two men put her in a tomb. We later discover that Madeline is still alive after, a few days later, she attacks her brother. Throughout the progression of the story, the narrator seems to become insane.

Mental illness plays such a significant role in these two gothic stories. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Roderick Usher admitted to the narrator that he felt mentally unwell in his letter. Of course, the house was already messing with Roderick’s mind, but with lady Madeline in

Two terms that were available from the components of fiction address were: setting and struggle (individual versus self). Setting can be portrayed as the place and time a story happens. As Edgar Allen Poe starts the story he initially depicts the setting as "Amid the entire of a dull, dim, and soundless day in the harvest time of the year, when the mists hung onerously low."(Poe, 1829/2013, pg. 702) The portrayal from the setting sets a feeling of bluntness all through this territory the storyteller is drawing closer. This bluntness remained the same all through the story and later changed over into death. Strife inside writing is a battle between two restricting powers. When I read "The Fall of the House of Usher." It keep me connected with

“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.