The Fall Of The House Of Usher Literary Analysis

Superstitions are a mysterious part of any culture, and those mysteries greatly influence mysterious writers. Edgar Allen Poe, one of the most famous mysterious authors, use the many mysterious encounters he faced as an asset for his short stories. A major influence was his time in Charleston, South Carolina, where he learned of the many superstitions and rituals of both the blacks and the whites of the area. His interests in horrific rituals like premature burials and zombication (which mainly involves voodoo, familiar to the Lowcountry Gullah culture) helped him to write horrific short stories, like “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Poe’s gory and eerie setting of the house itself and the off-putting characteristics of the Usher siblings expressed Poe’s knowledge of paranoia and interest of the “living dead,” which comes in the weird rituals of the Gullah culture.

“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’”

Fear is among one of the most universal human emotions that everyone is interconnected at one point or another during their lifetime. In the gothic stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “House Taken Over” written by Edgar Allan Poe and Julio Cortazar respectively. Edgar Allen Poe writes about how the character Mr. Usher, who because of his mental illness and delusions, cannot come to terms with his reality. Cortazar writes about the relationship between a brother and sister who have normal everyday lives and have strange and odd nightmare that haunts them. The

With our imagination we can have many thoughts in our mind, we can think of how we want to be in the future. Everybody in this world has their own way of thinking. “In the Gothic stories, “The Fall of The House of Usher written by Edgar Allan Poe and “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar the authors write about how both stories have some type of interest that makes the reader want to be very eager about the story. The imagination can overcome reason through issues such as: fear, paranoid, delusion, etc. The House of The Fall of Usher talks about how Mr. Usher is trying to get over his “dead” sister and the narrator is trying to help him. They begin to hear things inside the house, and realize that the sister was alive at the end. House Taken Over about a bother and sister that share a house that’s been passed over from previous family members and normally they have a typical daily routine but at night they come across “spooky” occasions.

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 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.

     One of the central themes underlying the short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, is that of the nature of the house. The way it is described and the way it is so mysterious. Another central theme about this story is the nature of the people that live in the house. They are portrayed very much in the same manner throughout the story. Thus, they have several similarities with each other. All of which are of a bad feeling, showing how bad things are for the people and the house. These similarities are very well laid out in the story and are, I believe, meant to be something to be considered when reading it.

As with many of Edgar Allan Poe's pieces, "The Fall of the House of Usher" falls within the definition of American Gothic Literature. According to Prentice Hall Literature, American Gothic Literature is characterized by a bleak or remote setting, macabre or violent incidents, characters being in psychological or physical torment, or a supernatural or otherworldly involvement (311). A story containing these attributes can result in a very frightening or morbid read. In all probability, the reason Poe's stories were written in this fashion is that his personal life was fraught with depression, internal agony, and despair. Evidently this is reflected in "The Fall of the House of Usher." Conjointly, Edgar Allan Poe's "The

If a fear cannot be articulated, it can't be conquered”- Stephen King. In the short stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Edgar Allan Poe, and “House Taken Over”, by Julio Cortazar, haunted houses caused the characters from both stories to get tugged into fearful situations that they don't even know themselves why that is. As both stories progress, the fear of the unknown tends to grow stronger the more the characters try to ignore it. All the running and hiding leads to the character's own downfalls. Although, both stories fall into different genres they do share the same idea; the fear of the unknown. Cortazar exemplifies this with magical realism by having the sense of intruders, causing the characters to leave their house completely. Poe addresses this by using gothic literature, with the“death” of his sister and the way that he keeps the fact if Lady Madeline is alive or the walking dead.

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.

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.

Deteriorating towns are generally filled with a mere handful of inhabitants still clinging to whatever life they used to have. Houses fall apart. Quality of life decreases. People become unstable due to their inability to provide for themselves and their families. This has been seen all over: the towns become relics and the people become charity cases. When the going gets tough the tough get going; however, those inhabitants who choose to stay rewrite their endings. Edgar Allan Poe’s use of imagery portraying decay in “The Fall of the House of Usher” serves to set up the final fate of the two main characters.

After evaluating the work of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, he utilizes with imagery to build up the feeling of terror. First of all, the passage is about an ill man, Roderick Usher, who invites his old friend of his to come meet him. In this passage both him and his sister, Madeline Usher, are the last remaining of the Usher race and is diagnosed with an unnatural illness. The narrator begins to feel terror with the supernatural things going on in the house of Usher and the illness of the Ushers. Although the narrator feels the sense of terror from the moment he entered the house, through the use of imagery, Poe is able to bring emotion to the reader. Throughout the passage, the author continues to build up the sense of terror by asserting the image and setting of both the passage and the atmosphere. For instance, he starts the passage by stating “a dull, dark, and a soundless day...clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens” (Poe 194). In relation to the previous quote, the quote illustrates the image of the atmosphere and the setting of the story. In particular, because Poe expresses the sense of terror by describing the atmosphere as dark, quiet, and gloomy, the reader can get an image of the surroundings and get the feeling of the darkness and horror. In addition, according to Poe, during the first glimpse of the house of Usher, the narrator describes it as gloomy and unpleasant. In particular, Poe states “the shades of the evening drew on… a sense of insufferable gloom” (Poe 194). Additionally, the description of the house adds on to the sense of terror that Poe established in the beginning of the story. Based on the past two quotes stated by the author, the reader can begin to picture a dark and dull day with a gloomy house adding on to the darkness. Lastly, in regards to Edgar Allan Poe, the house of Usher is

In the renowned literary work The Fall of the House of Usher, we receive many clues and hints as to how the house itself is indeed connected to its inhabitants. In this short story by Edgar Allan Poe we see an abounding amount of hints and clues to this theory. The first of these being the title itself. In the story the title is described as an “equivocal appellation” (315) or a title that can have more than one meaning. The title of “House of Usher” can be interpreted as the literal house, or rather the physical dwelling place of the Usher family yet also, the bloodline of Usher.

In the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher," by Edgar Allen Poe, setting is used extensively to do many things. The author uses it to convey ideas, effects, and images. It establishes a mood and foreshadows future events. Poe communicates truths about the character through setting.