Essay Comparing The Black Cat And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Dark and Dreary

Webster describes the supernatural as an event that is unexplainable by phenomena. It is displayed in a variety of literature including, The Night Circus, “The Black Cat”, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. Both authors use the idea of the supernatural in an intricate way that respectively sets the tone for each particular storyline.

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, is a fantasy novel that circles around the lives of two young magicians who try to learn and master the ways of magic. The use of supernatural in this novel is the not only one of the main characters of this book, but it is also the sign of hope and eternality. Both this novel and “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, reference another dimension or an out-of-body experience. One of the main characters from The Night Circus claims “{he} couldn’t tell the difference between what was real and what {he} wanted to be real” (Morgenstern 223). Just like in “The Black Cat” when the narrator “found himself committing a vile or a

The most conventional form of the supernatural is told through “The Fall of the House of Usher” when the main character witnesses a ghost himself. “-but then without these doors there stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher” (Poe 6). The supernatural element in The Night Circus are a bit different but stem from the same concept. Morgenstern uses the use of magic, “the watch lifts from the table, floating into the air and hovering as though it were suspended in water” (Morgenstern 17). The Night Circus, “The Black Cat” and “The fall of the House of Usher” have a dreary, mystical mood. The authors include both of these sources of the supernatural to give the stories a feeling of heightened drama and