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Figurative Language In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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How does Poe use diction, imagery details, and figurative language to set a vivid setting in The Fall of the House of Usher? The first impressions given by the narrator give the story a bleak outlook for the ending of the story by the way Poe describes his surroundings and the house of Usher. As the narrator rides up to his old friend Usher’s house, he uses dark detailing on the surrounding area with darker words that help provide a sense of insecurity within the narrator as he wonders why he is so afraid of the house of Usher. Words like “dull” and “oppressive” along with phrases like “soundless day in the autumn of year,...” (Poe, line 1) help prevail the darkness lingering outside the house of Usher as if all the evils of the world would be spent on one final blow on the Usher family. As the story progresses however, both Usher and the narrator end up going crazy as the gloomy weather and the reawakening of Usher’s twin sister both contribute to the evils destroying the Usher family. …show more content…

The narrator describes the house of having “vacant eye-like windows-upon a few rank sedges-and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees-...” (Poe, line 9) and “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart-...” (Poe, line 12) the “sickening of the heart” and “vacant eye-like windows” are examples of figurative language that foreshadows the misinterpreted death of Usher’s twin sister Madaline as they placed her in the the cellar of the house for later examination by physicians to find what disease she had come down

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