Washington Irving's The Legend Of The Sleepy Hollow And Rip Van Winkle And Young Goodman Walker And Edgar Allen Poe

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.

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.

They fought over the affection of a woman, this women invited them both to a party. When he saw how much Ichabod and the woman talked, Brom Bones became jealous. Soon after Ichabod left the party to go home, Ichabod reasoned that he was being chased by The Headless Horseman, a legend from Sleepy Hollow in which a ghost chases riders before they get to a certain point in the town. The fear indicated while Ichabod was being attacked by what he perceived as a ghost, was further developed using diction to create a more realistic experience for his reader. Irving writes in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; “As yet his panic had given his unskilful rider an apparent advantage in the chase; but just as he had got halfway through the hollow, the girth of his saddle gave way, and Ichabod felt it slipping from under him.

To begin with, imagination overcomes reasoning in the characters of the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”. While in the middle of the storm the narrator seems to be hearing strange noises that have nothing to do with the storm. For example, “An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows” (paragraph 31, pg 25). This shows readers that the narrator of the story is hearing noises, and it could be said that Usher’s condition is rubbing off on him. The narrator is unable to sleep at this point in the story because of Usher’s incurable fears that have now taken influence on the narrator because he believes he is hearing things. This demonstrates how imagination overcomes reason in the short

Throughout the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, there are many examples to explain why your imagination can lead you out of the real world. Such as, “...with an utter depression of soul, which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after – dream of the reveler upon opium – the bitter lapse into every day life…”(Poe 14). When the narrator enters the house, he notices that everything is out of the ordinary and unrealistic, because it is dying. Therefore, Usher’s imagination is what makes the narrator believe his sister may still be apart of the home and has come to haunt it. “The writer spoke of acute bodily illness- of a mental disorder which oppressed him- and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend...”(Poe 14). If he is explaining someone has a mental, than there is a high chance that it is the mind playing tricks on him. Which allows one to believe there is something to fear. Not only

One dark and lonely night, after a dance at the Van Tassel estate, Ichabod attempted to travel home. On his old horse, Gunpowder, he slowly made his way through the dark woods that crossed his path. Unfortunately, appearing from the dark shadows came a headless figure, which frightened Ichabod. In an attempt to escape, he ran to the covered bridge where the horseman was supposed to disappear into a burst of fire. Unfortunately, the figure flung its pumpkin head at Ichabod, knocking him off his horse and knocking him unconscious state that the next day, all that remained was a smashed pumpkin. Ichabod had disappeared. The story leaves you guessing what really happened. Did Ichabod run away, or did the Haunted Horseman kill him? Or was it Brom Bones, who married Katrina shortly after his opponent?s disappearance, and laughed every time there was mention of the pumpkin.

Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and Holden from J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye

The human imagination is a powerful tool that sometimes is very hard to control, if it can be controlled at all. In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe uses imagination as a key tool to make the story come to life.

Imagination can overcome reason in many ways within gothic literature but also in personal experiences too. Imagination can overcome reason as shown in the poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, within this poem the narrator hears an unknown knocking at his chamber door, the next text “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator goes and takes care of a mentally ill childhood friend and my personal experience of fear when I heard the knocking in my room.

One of the spookiest moments of my life, was exploring an abandoned warehouse and the door slammed shut, an entire flock of birds started to fly at me. This scenario is similar to the traits of Gothic Literature and Magical Realism because it is a description of the eerie setting and events. Gothic Literature and Magical Realism are similar because they both illustrate ideas of suspense and mystery throughout. Edgar Allen Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher”is an example of Gothic lit because they have the people of the story have physiological problems and are going crazy.While Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over” is an example of Magical Realism because it takes place in a realistic setting that includes ordinary details of everyday life.

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.

He saw a “gigantic [figure ready to pounce upon Ichabod]” (34). Ichabod runs the other way with his horse and then is “horror-struck on perceiving [the fact that] the [figure] was headless” (34). Just as Ichabod thought we was finally safe at the Church, the Horseman comes out, and throws a pumpkin at him. Till this day, Ichabod went missing. His body was not

In the text “The Fall of the House of Usher” there are supernatural events throughout the short story. From the rapidly decaying house that is quite literally connected to the main character Roderick Usher, to the ghost of Roderick's twin sister Madeline. “House of Usher” -- an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion. This line gives us a hint from the title toward the supernatural link between the physical house collapsing and the metaphorical “fall” of the Usher Family. I believe Edgar Poe did this to evoke an uncanny feeling in the reader and to add to the sublime of the short story. This link between living and inanimate gives the story an extra gothic element. “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 the terrors he had anticipated.” The supernatural element of Madeline “coming back from the dead” or being a ghost creates conflict within the plot and therefore leads to the inevitable fall of the Usher Family. I believe this ghostly figure struck fear into the reader creating a suspenseful follow up, allowing the imagination to take off and picture this supernatural occurrence. This was never an explained supernatural event. It was left up to the reader's imagination and their assumption as to what is real and what is a figment of the characters imagination. “There was a long and

Edgar Allan Poe is undoubtedly one of American Literature's legendary and prolific writers, and it is normal to say that his works touched on many aspects of the human psyche and personality. While he was no psychologist, he wrote about things that could evoke the reasons behind every person's character, whether flawed or not. Some would say his works are of the horror genre, succeeding in frightening his audience into trying to finish reading the book in one sitting, but making them think beyond the story and analyze it through imagery. The "Fall of the House of Usher" is one such tale that uses such frightening imagery that one can only sigh in relief that it is just a work of fiction. However, based on the biography of Poe, events

In Angela Carter’s “The Lady of the House of Love” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” reason is shown to be inadequate in explaining the apparitions that appear. The insufficiency of reason shrouds events in mystery, and instills fear and apprehension in both the characters and the audience. There are figures present in each story who represent logic and reason and firmly believe that supernatural elements do not exist, and their attempts to rationalize the anomalies that face them are futile. In Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” reason is insufficient to explain abnormal occurrences, as with Carter’s “The Lady of the House of Love,” but while Usher and the narrator’s emotions in Poe’s story are relatively