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Examples Of Diction In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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Edgar Allen Poe is considered to be one of the leading writers of the Gothic Romantic period of literature. One of Poe’s famous short stories, The Fall of the House of Usher, creates a dark and sorrowful atmosphere, with a deep story of connection between brother and sister intertwined within. Poe conveys this atmosphere through powerful and elaborate use of diction, to tie into the overarching theme of tradition. Poe is renowned throughout history for his beautiful and elaborate use of diction and symbolism. He uses copious amounts of description to conjure up vivid scenes in the reader’s mind. Early on in the story, the narrator describes the feeling he has of the house, “I say insufferable; for the feeling of was unrelieved by any of that …show more content…

Throughout the story, the connection between the end of the Usher family name and home is apparent. The narrator gives a statement about the family that provides a fact about the bloodline, “I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all-time honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent …” (414). The Usher family had always been isolated to itself, never marrying other lines into itself and possibly changing the name. This tradition weighs heavily when the Usher family ends up dwindling to the last two remaining twins, who both currently have failing health. The narrator also gives evidence to the connection between the family’s tradition and the home by stating, “... original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the “House of Usher” -an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion” (415). This statement further connects the intertwinement of the family, their tradition, and their house. It’s also a symbolic element that further eludes to the fall of the family and

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Merriam-Webster defines curb appeal as the visual attractiveness of a house. Curb appeal is a major selling point of a house and can either invoke positive or negative reactions from potential buyers. The attitude of a family and a home can be decided by the house’s curb appeal. In the selected section, the reader is able to sense clearly the awful curb appeal of the house and the dark attitude it creates in a person. Throughout the excerpt from “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator conveys his negative attitude toward the house of Usher with creative diction and his artful use of imagery.

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1741 Words | 7 Pages

Visions of psychological, emotional, spiritual paralysis and despair run rampant throughout dark romantic literature. Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, two dark Romantics and contemporaries of one another, endeavor to focus on humanity’s dark side, the supernatural and moral truths. Each writer places man at the center-point in their respective stories but Poe’s Gothic format stands out amongst the two writers while seemingly presents its nature within Hawthorne’s writing. Within “The Fall of the House of Usher” and The House of the Seven Gables, Poe and Hawthorne reveal humanity as an evil creature, perpetually plagued with sin, guilt, and morbidity.

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Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “Ligeia” has interesting examples for syntactical analysis. The diction and sentence structure in one particular paragraph reveals the narrator’s emotions and thought process. Parallelism and repetition of ideas provide further insight into the speaker’s mind. Lastly, a metaphor transforms an idea into tangible objects that add to the story’s imagery. Poe combines all of these key words, metaphors, and parallel sentences to explain the narrator’s naivety with Ligeia.

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158 Words | 1 Pages

In the story, The Fall of the House of Usher, a mood within the story is the sense of surprise, then horror. Usher and the narrator were surprised when, “... the tall figure, in its grave- clothes, of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white dress, and the signs of her terrible efforts to escape were upon every part of her thin form. For a moment she remained trembling at the door; then, with a low cry, she fell heavily in upon her brother; in her pain she died at last, she carried him down with her, down the floor. He too was dead, killed by his own fear.

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407 Words | 2 Pages

In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a classic written by Edgar Allen Poe, he employs clever descriptions in order to create the perspective for the rest of the story. With the inclusion of a dark, gloomy tone as well as developed metaphors, he is able to illustrate the archetypal morbid, horrific aesthetic impact of his work. Setting the scene right away, Poe introduces his story with the opening line, “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback.” The single sentence conveys several symbols carried throughout the plot, painting the image of a dark, autumn setting and a sense of isolation. In the specific excerpt, “the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens,” gives the reader a sense of depression, creating a claustrophobic the-sky-is-falling feeling which references the foreshadowed fall of the House of Usher.

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The story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” by Edgar Allan Poe is about a narrator who is going to visit his friend, Roderick, upon hearing about his worsening mental health. When he visits his friend, he discovers the family's curse and witnesses the end of the Usher line. In an attempt to cheer up his friend, the narrator engages Roderick in various activities such as reading, painting, and making music. One such dirge created by Roderick, “The Haunted Palace” is not only symbolic of the Usher line but is also symbolic of the change of Roderick.

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Deep within every person there is a sense of fear that terrifies them for life. In Edgar Allen Poe’s story “The Fall of the house of Usher”, the narrator enters the home of a lifelong friend, Usher, who has fallen to the fear he has held within him. Usher’s twin sister, Madeline, has Usher on edge thinking that she is dead. When they bury her, she comes back to life and takes him away to die with him. They are the last two of the family of Ushers.

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955 Words | 4 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe, the author of many short stories and poems such as A Tell-Tale Heart, Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, and much more, uses imagery, irony, and parallel structure in order to convey a common dark truth. Poe was an American writer who was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1809. By the age of two years old, his family had been abandoned by his father and his mother died the following year. After his mother’s death, he had been orphaned. Later on, when he became a writer, he used his warped past to make meaningful pieces of literature that are still and will continue to be, treasured.

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1669 Words | 7 Pages

“ The Fall of the House of Usher “ by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story about a man named Roderick Usher who initiates some events such as evoking his friend The Narrator as a protagonist to the dreadful mansion. The images such as the house and gothic ambience are used to reinforce the idea of giving the mystery to the reader. Edgar Allan Poe uses gothic elements to show how they affect the atmosphere and the characters. In the beginning , the gothic atmosphere of the house is indicated with terrifying images such as “ dull, dark and soundless ” that the feeling of horror vaccinated into reader by the thoughts of the narrator.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

The trace has, properly speaking, no place, for effacement belongs to the very structure of the trace. (Derrida 156) In existing, trace becomes the mechanism by which it endures effacement; for all things which exist in the present automatically display traces of absent signifiers which may never exist, in their totality, in the present. Riddled with Derrida’s notion of trace, “The Fall of the House of Usher” most evidently presents trace through the reverberations of genetic trace. Prior to the narrator’s visitation of the Usher estate, he describes the means by which the Usher family furthers its lineage: I had learned . . .

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537 Words | 3 Pages

The Jungian archetype was first introduced by Carl Gustav Jung, a psychiatrist at the University of Zurich, who with Sigmund Fred explored the unconscious of the human psyche. Jung came to believe that there is a shadow behind a person mind and Freud disagreed to such idea and rather say that it was just the limbo. Although their friendship did not last that long, Jung came up with an idea in which believed that universal, mythic characters live within the collective unconscious of people over world. These type of archetypes can be seen in the short stories of Edgar Allan Poe In the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, it shows quite a few Jungian archetypes throughout the story.

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1500 Words | 6 Pages

The physical house reflects the end of the Usher bloodline as it still stands on the edge of ruin, away from civilization. While the house itself is splitting due to the fissure that is tearing it apart, the twins are being torn apart by the disease that will soon take them. Ultimately, the house does fall to the “black and lurid tarn” (Poe 196) and the twins return to the ground having met the demise that they had been molded to by “preternatural interconnectedness” (Timmerman

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910 Words | 4 Pages

In “The Fall of the House of Usher” the tone gives off an eerie and bizarre feeling. This is similar to many of Poe’s other short stories but this piece the most. The tone is gloomy compared to “The Black Cat” that Poe has also written. The author starts off the story with immense details of the setting. The readers get a dark vibe from these details.

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471 Words | 2 Pages

“It was a dark and stormy night...” Surely you have heard the opening line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Paul Clifford’s many times. This line is known for being overused in many stories, and has been parodied countless time. By using this line in the introduction of a story, the uninspired vocabulary and unoriginal concept will be bored as soon as they start the book. Edgar Allen Poe avoids this problem by using advanced, dark diction and strong imagery in the introduction of his book The Fall of the House of Usher to give the reader a clear idea of what the tone of the remainder of the story will be.

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942 Words | 4 Pages

In the “Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick Usher prematurely buries his sister, Madeline Usher, because he thinks she has died from an unknown illness. Poe describes the burial as, “We replaced and screwed down the lid, and having secured the door of iron, made out the way with the toll…” (Poe 425). When Roderick bolted the iron lid upon his sister’s coffin, all trust that had previously been built between the two had been broken. In Poe’s life, after the burial of his wife and mother, he felt like he could never trust anyone as well.

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