Setting In The Setting Of The House Of Usher

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.

Mr. Usher represents the mind to her body and suffers from the mental counterpart of his physical illness, Mr. Usher inability to distinguish fantasy from reality resembles his sister’s physical weakness. The narrator knows little about the house of usher and is to visit the mansion in many years. “ I had been passing alone, on horseback...” (1) This basically saying how it has been many years that they haven’t seen the house and it looks very old and dull,

When writing “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe used the setting outside of the mansion to illustrate the theme of the fear of death. From the outset, the Rodrick Usher’s home is portrayed in a way that gives the reader a feeling of alarm. For example, the narrator mentions the house gives him a feeling of “insufferable gloom” (Usher 1). By pointing this out, the reader begins to feel on edge as the connotation of “gloom” is unwelcoming and distressing. The home is also said to have “vacant eye like windows” (Usher 1) which make the narrator

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

The theme of illness is detectable even in the first few sentences of the story, before any character is truly presented. Poe presents the setting of the story and the physical house of Usher in a tone that necessarily gives the reader a distinct sense of discomfort and misery that is readily tied to the rest of the story and the few characters in it. In the first paragraph alone, he uses phrases like “a dull, dark and soundless day”, “insufferable gloom”,

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

“The Fall of the House of Usher (1939)”, arguably Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short story, is a tale centered around the mysterious House of Usher and its equally indiscernible inhabitants. These subjects are plagued with physical and mental degradation – the Usher siblings suffer from various abnormal ailments and unexplained fears, while the house itself seems to be tethering on the edge of collapse. The gothic elements in the story are distributed generously, and the plot is increasingly ridden with the supernatural as it progresses.

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

The Fall of the House of Usher is a story “of sickness, madness, incest, and the danger of unrestrained creativity. This is among Poe's most popular and critically-examined horror stories” (Gordon). For example if you were to close your eyes while someone was reading the story you would see the house “decaying” in your imagination (Poe). From the start of the story the narrator’s strange “insufferable gloom” is introduced. He notes the darkness of his surrounding (Gordon). The stories are very deeply described and felt.

Poe creates a sensation of claustrophobia in this story. The narrator is mysteriously trapped by the lure of Roderick’s attraction, and he cannot escape until the house of Usher collapses completely the story is about an unnamed narrator who has a childhood friend named Roderick Usher who owns a very creepy mansion. Roderick lives with his sister Madeline in his massive mansion. In the beginning, the narrator informs us that Usher is mysterious and reserved. Roderick summons our narrator to his mansion by sending him a letter that told him to immediately report to his house because he was sick and is suffering from some sort of mental disease. Madeline is suffering from a disease as well and Usher feels that he and his sister are soon to expire.

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.

Isolation does not come from being alone, but from being unable to communicate with other people that are not yourself. In 1839 Edgar Allen Poe published the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The unnamed narrator in the story is asked to visit the mansion of an old friend whom he hasn’t talked to in a very long time. The narrator's friend, Roderick is a sick man who suffers from an "acuteness of the senses," Roderick feels that he will die of the fear he feels. After some time Roderick's sister dies and he entombs his sister in one of the vaults under the mansion. As the days pass Roderick becomes more uneasy. The narrator decides to read a book for Roderick in order to pass the night away, but the sounds from the book come to life. Roderick reveals that he has heard these sounds for days, that Madeline had been buried alive and that she is trying to escape. At the same time, she appears, and attacks Roderick and Roderick dies of fear. The narrator escapes the house; the entire house cracks along the break in the frame and crumbles to the ground. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” theme is "being isolated and its resulting lack of human interaction results in madness" symbolically the house acts as a place of isolation, characteristically Roderick is mentally ill and reserved, and the plot serves to describe that the house collapses reveals that living in isolation results in madness. The theme "being isolated and its resulting lack of human interaction results in madness" in the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” is conveyed through tone, symbol, and character.

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.

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.

Hence, Poe appropriates a setting that seems to contaminate the characters. Just as the atmosphere and landscape seem translated into the characters, the house, as another primary feature of setting, functions as a symbol for the Usher family. The narrator even mentions initially that “House of Usher” had come to represent both family and home. Therefore, the house itself can be seen as an embodiment of the family. Poe emphasizes this symbolism by personifying the house, providing it with the anatomy of humans: “eye-like windows” and clothing: a “veil.” Moreover, the house is deteriorating just as the family is. The Ushers, Roderick and his sister Madeline, have no relatives, only themselves, and both are suffering with unusual illness. Finally, after Roderick and Madeline die, likewise the house completely breaks apart, characterizing the fate of the family.