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Fall Of The House Of Usher Short Story Analysis

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When it comes to writing a novel or a short story, or even any literary work for that matter, it has always been really important to consider setting. Setting is defined as the place where the story takes place. It is where the plot and many main events developed and have occurred. Because of the mood stories set, the reader is able to discern the emotions or feelings of the characters. In Fall of the House of Usher and Where is Here? by Edgar Allan Poe and Joyce Carol Oates respectively use setting to set a general mood for the story, imply specific character details, and draw the reader to read between the lines and make inquisitive judgments about the short story. When first reading through Fall of the House of Usher and Where is Here? …show more content…

Use setting to help readers discern specific details about the characters of the short stories. When mood is set, there is a general feel for the story, but when mood uses extremely descriptive language, characters come alive and act strange because of the mood in the story. Fall of the House of Usher uses excruciatingly long, drawn out phrases of detail sometimes so much that one can easily forget all about the plot of the story. Details such as those found on page three hundred and nine at the end of Fall of the House of Usher during the “resurrection” of Lady Madeline state, “There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every form of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold-then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.” This description shows the readers through a mental image of the horrors that Roderick Usher and the narrator faced when they went down to the tomb. The image of Lady Madeline was and is terrifying to many readers because of the gripping, graphic details. On a lighter note, Where is Here? Does the same thing Poe does, but not in so much gruesome detail. The details of the Stranger in Where is Here? share with the readers a haunting and …show more content…

challenge their readers to look between the lines and get to the underlying cause or moral of the story. Both of these stories have a questionable ending which makes them tough to read and realize what really happens. For example, Fall of the House of Usher ends in a rather abrupt manner when Roderick realizes that the noises he’s been hearing were coming from the tomb where Lady Madeline has been buried. He had this ongoing fear that she has been buried alive but when he arrives down there as seen on page three hundred and nine she was in fact dead but resurrected. Or was she? Wondering what Madeline really is puzzles the readers. Another example of this on page three hundred and nine and three hundred and ten of the story is when the house crumbles and falls apart. The narrator makes it out alive, but there are no clear details as to usher, the most common assumption was that he was buried alive under the house just like his twin sister Madeline. In an even more puzzling way, Where is Here? Draws the readers to question their beliefs of the supernatural world. Throughout the story, many readers were able to discern that the stranger may have been a ghost. Details like those see on page three hundred and twenty seven in the third paragraph state, “On the windowsill above the sink were several lushly blooming African Violet plants in ceramic pots and these the stranger mad a

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The setting of a story a scary movie and the location of a haunted house are important in creating a mystery or suspense. In the poem “Windigo” and the short story “House taken over” the authors create mystery by using point of view to make the reader feel unsafe or leave the reader with things to think about and wonder. Setting is most effective in creating a mysterious mood because it makes the reader feel uncomfortable because it puts them in an area that they’re not used to, also if little information is given the reader is left with nothing but their own thoughts. In the short story “House taken over” by Julio Cortazar he creates a sense of mystery in many different ways through his text such as point of view or setting. One of his ways

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When the narrator arrives at the House of Usher he describes it as having, “vacant eyelike windows.” The narrator’s description of the house creates tension and suspense by helping the reader understand how the house looked by personifying its characteristics. Both Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe used mood to create suspense and tension in gothic literature. Throughout the story “The Devil and Tom Walker” Irving develops the mood of the story by describing the setting as being a “land of famine.” Similarly, the narrator of “The Fall of the House of Usher” called the area around the House of Usher, “dull, dark, and soundless” with “clouds hung oppressively low.”

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The imagery Poe crafts into the story sets a mysterious,and almost melancholy mood complemented by the tone. In The Fall of the House of Usher, the story is started by the quote “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.” immediately creating a creepy, melancholy tone to make the reader get a feel of the solemn sadness of the story as soon as the story starts. Annabel Lee, a sad story where the narrator loses the love of his life, is turned creepy when the narrator sleeps with a dead Annabel Lee in her tomb. The quote “And so, all the night-tide, “I lie down by the side Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,” makes the reader shift from feeling sad for a man that just lost his young wife, to creeped by a man who takes death cannot end our love

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Comparing Gothic Literature Setting is not equally important in modern Gothic story. In “Fall of the House of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe, Poe adheres to the traditional settings of Gothic literature. However, in “Where is Here?” by Joyce Carol Oates , Oates doesn’t follow after most Gothic writers and uses a different setting than in most Gothic literature.

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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 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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The story’s first sentence gives the reader a description of setting, and mood. “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, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.” From the beginning, the reader starts to picture the narrators surrounding, while stirring a sense of mystery. In the quote, the words “dull, dark, and soundless” along with the season of “autumn” paints the scene to be gray, and grim. The reader is also introduced to the “melancholy” House of Usher.

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that the stem of the Usher race . . . had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. (Poe 2) Despite the incestual means of their conception occurring in the past, resulting genetic defects oppress the Usher siblings Madeline and Roderick—both physically and mentally—well into the future. Although the narrator provides no physical description of Madeline Usher prior to her entombment, of her brother Roderick he reports deformed features in line with those of products of

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Writing to compare In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Julio Cortazar’s “House Taken Over,” the setting were similar because they both took place in a creepy house . However, in Poe’s story, the setting is in a creepy, almost broken down house. By contrast, Cortazar’s setting takes place in a big house that was very clean.

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One day in the story Roderick comes to announce that Lady Madeline is “no more”; he says further that he is going to preserve her corpse for two weeks because of the inaccessibility to the family burial ground and due to the “unusual character of the malady of the deceased” (Poe 23) which foreshadows the re-emergence of Lady Madeline later in the story. After days of bitter grief, Usher changes substantially, the narrator explains, “His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten.” (Poe 24) Usher is now wondering feverishly and running from chamber to chamber, often he stops and stares vacantly into space as if he is listening to some faint sound.

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Throughout “The Fall of the House of Usher,” metaphor and symbolism are heavily relied upon to express the extent of the madness that resides within the Usher House. In the short story, Poe creates a symbolic parallel between the art and stories that are seen and told. It can be implied, from a painting, in the Usher house, that Lady Madeline Usher is still alive. The reader can also imply that there is a hidden tunnel or room under the entirety of the house. “The Mad Trist” indirectly tells the reader of Lady Madeline’s escape from the tomb she had been placed in.

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I had a lot of misconceptions about the gothic genre before this class. Thus, I had difficulty understanding several texts during the beginning of the session. I felt helpless like a nine-month-old infant who is trying to learn how to walk. Trying to absorb the overall message of “The Fall of the House of Usher” took over eight hours of my day. Despite, that I was unable to wrap my head around the message of the story other than the immense stress the author puts on the setting.

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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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Throughout American literature and cinema history, the premature burial of someone has been displayed. In the American gothic short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” by Edgar Allan Poe, this is portrayed as well. Roderick Usher buries his twin sister, Madeline Usher, alive because he believes that she has died. In Poe’s, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” it showcases Poe’s troubled past with the death of loved ones due to disease. Thus, it contributes to the theme one can never trust anyone, even one’s own family.

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The setting can also be used to emphasize a certain message or deeper meaning in a story such as in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” when the setting shows how ‘Love’ is a difficult concept to define. Similarly, the setting can be metaphorical for the inner thoughts of the characters in the story. This was seen in snow when the light reflected Russell’s uncertainty about what Love meant for him at his stage in life. These stories show how the setting is such an important aspect of emphasizing the message and meaning of a story to the

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