Comparing The Fall Of The House Of Usher And House Taken Over

There are many similarities and differences in the stories “Fall of the House of Usher” and “House taken over” , both of these stories fall under very similar literature types .

“Fear is not real. It is the product of thoughts you create. Danger is very real, but fear is only a choice.” Fear is not something that is always real, such as when Usher was scared but there was nothing to fear yet, but the danger at the end of the story, especially for Ushers friend, was something to fear for. In the Gothic Literature short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, the setting is somber and creates an illusion of darkness. On the other hand, “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar, portrays the idea of magical realism in, which setting is more realistic and less gloomy. Although Gothic Literature and Magical Realism are similar, there are also many differences, especially in their settings.

Gothic literature originally came from gothic architecture. It started around the 1700s when Europe and America were going through a literary movement. It was an anti transcendentalist movement which meant they did not believe everyone has the ability and opportunity to experience and accomplish greatness. Gothic writers, like Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King, write stories that include sin and self-destruction. Most gothic literature stories have a dark and creepy setting with details to enhance the scary environment. When Edgar Allen Poe wrote "The Fall of the House of Usher," he uses lots of details and describes each component of the outside of the Usher home. Poe writes, "I looked upon the scene before me upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain... and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees with the utter depression of soul..."Instead of saying he saw the house, Poe uses specific word choice to enhance the effect. Poe also describes the trees; then he uses personification to say they have depressed souls instead of saying they look poor. In a similar manner, he portrays the house falling with an abundance of embellishments. For example, Poe says, " There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame."The author does not simply say she has blood on her clothes but uses the white robe as a symbol of purity and the blood represents her refinement leaving her body. The

Gothic Literature is a writing style that has dark setting, it has an overall atmosphere of mystery, exoticism, death. A Gothic story will revolve around a large, ancient house or an obscure setting that conceals a terrible secret or that serves as the refuge of an especially frightening and threatening character

Gothic literary traditions began in the middle ages and were used to evoke the reader’s emotions of fear and suspense. The elements within the stories were heavily described to add to the author’s tone and mood of the reader. Edgar Allan Poe is a well known author in Gothic literature, one of his pieces “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a Gothic short story that features a grim tone using Gothic elements to draw the attention of the readers. The intentions of Gothic authors were to give the readers a look into the dark side of the time in which the book is written. Poe uses a grim tone throughout “The Fall of the House of Usher” and expresses it through the setting of the story and the imagery he uses.

In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, there are many connections that can be made between the house and its inhabitants. Roderick and Madeline Usher were just as unstable and oppressive as the home they lived in. You can see the resemblance considering Edgar Allen Poe’s description of the setting and comparing it to his description of the Usher’s. After doing so you can see how much an affect the house has on them. The parallels between the house and family start with the title, “House of Usher”.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe is described as a gothic tale. A gothic tale or gothic novel is “a genre of fiction characterized by mystery and supernatural horror, often set in a dark castle or other medieval setting”¹. Like many of Poe’s short stories, “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a dark tale filled with madness, isolation, fear, and supernatural horrors.

The fall of the house of Usher is a gothic, short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1839. At the beginning of the story Poe creates horror and mysterious mood. He uses phrases like “dull, dark, and soundless day; shades of the evening; melancholy.” When the narrator looks at the house, he says “with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit.”

In both “House Taken Over” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”, it is implied that supernatural or unexplainable forces are happening in the House. There are also a lot of similarities and differences between the two. One of the main focuses in each story is the house in which the protagonists live in.

When someone leaves the world mentally and they begin to create their own world, their mind starts to deteriorate and they become very detached from reality. “The Fall of the House of Usher” was written in 1839 by a well known author of gothic literature, Edgar Allan Poe. This story begins with a man, who is not named, who receives a letter from a friend of his, Roderick Usher, that he is ill and wants the narrator to come to the house. When the narrator arrives, he begins to learn a lot of strange situations and incidences about the family and the house. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” the house represents the collapsing of the family because the house is falling apart it seems the family is too.

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” exhibits a well known fictional genre of the early stages of literature: Gothic. Gothic fiction uses multiple techniques which Poe represents these in extraordinary ways. Poe uses the Gothic style of writing extremely well, therefore, we can see this in “The Fall of the House of Usher” as he exercises the use of eerie settings, intimidating character descriptions, character isolation, and lunatic type behaviors to show the reader his writing is pure Gothic. Poe’s usage of strange and frightening settings helps the reader understand the meaning of pure Gothic within his writing of “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe is an example of Gothic Literature. Gothic literature is a style that began in the 1700’s and includes; eerie mood, bleak settings, and weird/violent incidents. Magical realism, like the story House Taken Over by Julio Cortazar, is closely associated with Latin American 20th century authors and combines reality and fantasy. The two styles of literature have a lot of different components but similarities as well. Both of the stories mentioned above are different genres of writing but they have many similarities.

Literature can be defined as written works, especially those considered of superior or lasting artistic value. In the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” written by Edgar Allen Poe, Usher is a senile middle aged man who invites an old friend to his gothic mansion. While arriving the narrator notices mysterious events beginning to happen. Also, in “House Taken Over” written by Julio Cortazar, siblings find themselves in post WWII Argentina trying to avoid a dangerous entity manifesting and taking over their house. Gothic Style uses the power of suggestion and implication when depicting the supernatural, whereas Magical Realism arouses fear and concern in its audience by including supernatural events in modern society.

In Edgar Alan Poe's Story The Fall Of The House Of Usher the setting takes place in a

“Gothic architecture” now denotes the medieval from of architecture, characterized by the use of the high pointed arch and vault, flying buttresses, and intricate recesses, which spread through western Europe between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries. The Gothic Novel ,or in an alternative term ,Gothic romance ,is a type of prose fiction which was inaugurated by Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto : A Gothic Story (1764) – the subtitle denotes its setting in the Middle Ages – and flourished through the early 19th century. It is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1839.The Fall of the House of Usher possesses the Quintessential – features of the Gothic tale: a haunted house, dreary landscape, mysterious sickness ,and double personality. For all its easily identifiable Gothic elements, however, part of the terror of this story is its