The Fall of the House of Usher

The short stories “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe and “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar are two well known works of literature that encompass unique literary styles. Poe utilizes Gothic literature in his story, a style of writing that incorporates elements of darkness, gloom, drama, and intense descriptions. On the other hand, Cortazar uses Magical Realism and its realistic characters, setting, and fantastic and unusual events to tell his tale. Despite the two being completely different genres, they share many similar traits, specifically relating to fear.

An analytical essay of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “Where is Here?”

The Usher mansion is slowly deteriorating, just like Roderick Usher himself. The “sombre tapestries,” “ebon blackness,” and “phantasmagoric armorial trophies” did not just start showing in the house; these elements have had time to develop and is now represented as a never ending darkness, which is just like Roderick Usher’s mental illness. Not only does Poe create an image of the house, he also uses lucid details describing the Usher’s mansion and the rooms inside the home to show that Roderick’s mental illness has physically and mentally trapped him. Roderick is a gloomy and mysterious character who looks as if he is dead. Poe describes Roderick’s appearance as one to not easily be forgotten (Poe 152). In Roderick’s mind, he feels as if he has no escape from this illness, which terrifies him. His biggest fear is fear himself. The evil that has overcame his body will take a toll on his life and he is aware of it because he says “I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed no abhorrence of danger, except in it absolute effect-in terror” (Poe 153). As described in the story, the Usher house has rooms that create a somber life and with this creation, Poe is able to portray the kind of life that Roderick Usher is living and will live. Not only is this technique used in “The Fall of the House of

A concern of Roderick Usher is the waning health of his twin sister, Lady Madeline. Usher explains to his dear friend, the narrator, that she is the only surviving relative he has. He further explains that his sister’s health condition baffles any physician that has come to the house. After a few days of the narrator’s visit, Lady Madeline dies. Usher explains to the narrator that he wishes to preserve her body by placing her into the underground crypt of the house. I believe that Poe is trying to use symbolism in Lady Madeline’s death in relation to Roderick’s faltering mental stability. For example, Lady Madeline represents a part of Usher that he has lost; a part of him that has become so strange and frightening to him. When he and the narrator place Lady Madeline’s body into the crypt, it is a desperate act to help preserve a part of himself.

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.

The Fall of the House of Usher and Where is Here, are two short stories that have similar settings. They are similar because for one, the authors were both dark, and mysterious, which would mean that they enjoyed dark and mysterious things. So in return, they're writings came out to be dark and mysterious. One of the similarities between the settings of the two short stories is that they were both written in the 1800's, so all of the houses were much more extravagant, and much more detail, so houses the characters are living in are very magnificent. Another similarity between the two is where the stories take place; in the 1800's, where if you did anything remotely bad, you were sinned for the rest of your life. The last similarity between the setting of the short stories is the characters in the stories. In each of the stories a visitor shows up, and is somewhat forced to help in completing a task with the main character that they came to visit.

Violent or macabre incidents are often used in American Gothic Literature to present imposing, though quite unsettling, portraits of the human experience by way of terror. Poe accomplishes this in “The Fall of the House of Usher” at what time Madeline Usher reappears at the end of the story, covered in blood and kills Roderick Usher. “There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold—then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to

Poe’s use of play on words contributes to the sense of confusion and disarray. For example, Usher, is not only the family name, but it could also be interpreted as the exact definition of usher, which means to show or guide someone to a certain place. This is what Roderick did when he invited the narrator to the house. Roderick “ushered” him into a whole new world of darkness and deception. This may explain the reason of the house’s downfall. There was a compassionate man that entered the house, which led to an imbalance. The house, almost like a person, could not handle the change within and it crumbled into the ground.

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.

In the story “ The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, has an American romanticism with its characters. Edgar Allan Poe is considered a Dark Romanticism because of the way he writes his poems and short stories centered around the concept of evil human nature, darkness, and death. Roderick and Madeline Usher were said to be related during the middle of the story; they were twins. It explained how they were sick, Roderick had a mental disorder and Madeline was physically sick. As the narrator enters the desolate house, he finds both Roderick and his sister in a severe state of depression and they both appear sick like. The narrator tries to make Roderick feel better, but Roderick wouldn’t budge. Roderick thinks that the house is making him sick and making him to appear crazy.

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 “Fall of the House of Usher”, Madeline and Roderick Usher have lived their entire lives in their family mansion. As he looks upon the Usher house for the first time, even the narrator is intimidated by its appearance. Making the use of personification, the narrator describes the eerie and ominous features of the house in front of him. Therefore, making the house seem solitary, as if it is different from reality which is seen when stated “upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant, eye- like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation” (Poe, 412). Nothing on earth can be compared to the eerie features of the house, such as its personified window eyes or a sense of an insufferable gloom that pervaded his spirit has he looked upon the house (Poe, 412). Roderick is suffering from madness, “acute body illness-of a mental disorder which oppressed him” (Poe, 416) which is

The "fabric gave little token of instability"-- or the mansion itself did not tell of the turmoil it concealed. The story takes place in autumn, a season associated with death. When the story's tension is about to reach its crescendo, a storm comes up, a "rising tempest." This is a symbol for the "tempest" brewing in Roderick Usher's mind. Poe's use of foreshadowing is just enough to clue the reader into what will happen, but not enough to give it away.Character traits are displayed through how the setting affects, influences, and reveals the characters.

Rabindranath Tagore and Edgar Allan Poe’s marvellous creations, The Hungry Stones and The Fall of the House of Usher, respectively, give an account of the narrators’ strange and inexplicable experience of the supernatural world in haunted palaces. These two short stories, which can be considered to be a dream vision and a sort of phantasmagoria, conglomerate certain situations, real and unreal, and certain events, factual and illusory. The very titles of the stories are suggestive enough of their mystery and enchantment. Both the stories are full of supernatural touches and suggestions and show the writers’ skill to build up an elusive fantasy in an engaging way. Although the two stories exclusively deal with the eerie, mysterious supernatural

In the beginning of the story, Poe does an impeccable job capturing the sadness and the dreariness of the Usher’s property. The narrator describes how the property fills his spirit with sadness and woe. There are dead trees that surround the property as well as this heavy deathly air that only covers the property of the Usher’s. The narrator describes how there was no earthly feeling which foreshadows the deaths that happened toward the end of the tale. The dark and quiet lake in front of the property matched the house and its empty windows. The house held a cold and deathly gloom that struck fear at just the sight of it. The house itself resembled irony because it was decaying and barely standing just as the residents who occupied it.