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Symbolism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Decent Essays

The derelict House of Usher sat on a vacant tract of land, with the exception of the stark and white trees contrasting the darkened sky (Poe 308). The narrator in “The Fall of The House of Usher” approaches this unnerving scene as he prepares himself to aid his estranged childhood friend, Roderick Usher, through an obscure mental illness. The narrator is able to slow the progression of Usher’s state at first; however, when the madman’s twin, Madeline, dies and Usher must bury her, his illness increases dramatically. As the days after Madeline’s burial pass, the narrator experiences an inexplicable and unnerving sensation that spikes when he realizes that Madeline’s cadaver is located directly beneath him. The narrator’s delineated paranoia culminates into fear within his last few hours at the House of Usher, when he learns that Usher’s twin is buried alive and is still breathing. Edgar Allan Poe's vivid imagery supports that the …show more content…

Poe’s descriptive writing highlights the narrator’s developing suspicions, the intuition in action, and eventually, the source of his instincts coming to light. Poe describes a nearly tangible scene of a “gloomy” and “tempest[ous]” environment that easily spawns fear in the narrator’s mind (Poe 320). The author’s vivid depiction of the physical surroundings of the narrator clarifies his thought process and the conditions leading to his fear. The narrator infers that something was wrong from the ambience of what he could see around him. Subsequently, Poe communicates the speaker’s active portrayal of the man “uplift[ing himself] upon the pillows” in a sudden and fearful fit, followed by his “pacing rapidly to and fro” nervously (Poe 320). Poe’s precise description is rooted in his acquaintance with this feeling of inexplicable fear, a characteristic shared with even one

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