The Shunned House
Discuss Lovecraft’s description of the house over the course of the story. Be sure to include details from the beginning middle and end of the story.
Lovecraft describes the house as though it looked gloomy and torn down.
“..the shunned house was vacant, with barren, gnarled, and terrible old trees, long, queerly pale grass, and nightmarishly misshapen weeds.. “ “..The small-paned windows were largely broken, and a nameless air of desolation hung round the precarious panelling, shaky interior shutters, peeling wall-paper, falling plaster, rickety staircases, and such fragments of battered furniture as still remained..” (Lovecraft V.8)
Defend whether the narrator is a reliable narrator or not.
The narrator in “The Shunned House,” can fit in the unreliable category. As the story continues, the narrator admits to lying to other characters, and presents a rather unreal story. The narrator says, “..Later I told Harris only through sheer necessity, and because he had heard odd tales from old people which disposed him ever so little toward belief,” (Lovecraft. V. 8.).
Describe the conflict in the story. Be sure to include what type of conflict it is, how it starts, develops and is resolved.
The conflict in the short story is all of the events that happen in it- throughout the short story the house is said to give off bad vibes. There is a certain scene where the narrator awakens to an ear-deafening scream from his uncle; upon finding his uncle he
An unreliable narrator is a character who is telling a story, but is not completely accurate or credible due to problems with the character 's mental state or maturity. The unreliable narrator holds a distorted view of the events taking place. This distortion gives readers a chance to offer their own interpretations to the story being told. Unreliable narration is valuable to the reader and satisfying to the author because the audience must look beyond what the narrator is portraying and view all the elements of the read to understand the author 's message. The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman are great examples of unreliable narration.
Identify and describe two conflicts in the story. Explain how the protagonist responds throughout the story and what his or her response reveals about him or her. Write in complete sentences.
Conflict is a struggle between opposing forces. There can be multiple conflicts in a story. This is the case in Of Mice and Men. In chapters three and four, there are man vs. man, man vs. self, and man vs. society conflicts. As George and Lennie interact with the workers on the ranch, sometimes conflicts arise between them.
Some stories do not have many different conflicts in the story. For example, in “Little Red Riding Hood” there is only one conflict which is Man vs Wolf or Man vs Man, but in some stories like “The Most Dangerous Game” there are all three conflicts throughout the book. Having more conflicts gives the story a bigger theme of suspense. In “Little Red Riding Hood”, the only conflict is getting to her grandma’s house where in “The Most Dangerous Game” there are many different conflicts that give the story more suspense and make it more interesting. Furthermore, there are many examples of conflicts in the short story.
It is difficult to isolate the play’s conflict to anything other than on a thematic level. Every time a conflict has a potential of presenting itself, the fantasy element
In the story there are 3 types of conflict, Person vs. Self, Person vs. Society and Person vs. Person. Person vs. Self would come in when Carolee had to decide what she was gonna do. Would she call the police or help the person or just leave well alone. Person vs. Society would be the police force against the suspect. Finally Person vs. Person would be when the suspect shot the other police officer and when he was getting shot at.
Moral Dilemma to me, means having to make an ethical decision between what is considered right and what is considered wrong.
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
According to Ann Charters in The Short Story and its Writer, "conflict is the opposition presented to the main Character of a narrative by another character, by events or situations, by fate, or by some aspect of the protagonist's own personality or nature. The conflict is introduced by means of a complication that sets in motion the rising action, usually toward a climax and eventual resolution" (Charters 1782).
To write a compelling story, you will need to include conflict. Conflict is one of the main ingredients you will need for a story since it captures the reader's attention. According to Rekenthaler conflict results in the release of oxytocin which can generate strong feelings of connection. Connecting to the story plays a big role to form a story worthwhile. If the reader can't connect, the story can
A unreliable narrator is someone who lies and deceives, the reader. In addition to that a narrator who is insane is also a unreliable narrator. In the short stories that we have read, including Strawberry Spring, by Stephen King where a mentally ill college student starts going on a killing spree during the strawberry spring where the winter warms and there is a lot of fog.The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is which is about a hallucinating woman in a large estate where she is being held by her husband and being captivated in a room for her 0“sickness” of having oppressive thinking and ideas., and A Tell Tale Heart, by Edgar Allen Poe which is about a madman who watched a old man sleep for 7 days straight in the night and then killed him on the 8th because of his “vulture eye”. All of the narrators are mentally insane, therefore rendering each narrator unreliable. Each of which being in their own way. The most unreliable narrator is from A Tell Tale heart by Edgar Allen Poe because he is in denial about his mental health and rationalizes criminal behavior.
As living and breathing human beings people are bound to experience some type of conflict. Conflict can be present within a person, between two people, between a person and forces of nature, and even between a person and their society. Conflict is defined as the struggle that shapes the plot in a story (Clugston, 2014, ch.4sect.1 para.4). When reading a piece of literature, especially a short story, one should pay special attention to the central conflict because it is the key element of the story (Clugston, 2014). This essay will analyze “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin and “Sweat” by
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 Fall of the House of Usher” the story starts with the narrator saying that he is overcome with a feeling of gloom upon first seeing the house. He compares the windows to vacant eyes. The narrator goes on to tell how the house appears to him but then tries to explain it away as his overactive imagination.
Each story ever written has many literary elements within it. Elements such as setting, characters, resolution, plot, and lastly conflict, Conflict is a major part of any story. The plot is centered around any sort of conflict in a short story or novel. It creates challenges with the story and within the characters. It keeps a reader entertained enough to see if the characters overcome those hardships. James Baldwin’s story, “Sonny’s Blues”, uses conflict as the main concept of the story, the conflicts and struggles wither make or break the characters in the story.