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Symbolism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

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The Symbolic and Metaphorical House of Usher Throughout all of Edgar Allen Poe stories, it is apparent that Poe uses symbolism and hidden meanings often in his work. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is filled with these hidden and interesting secrets. Poe uses these literary devices to his advantage, as they help add to the content of the story. Nearly every action or object has a symbolic to add to the plot or set the atmosphere of the story. Here I will list and explain some of those examples. One of the largest symbols throughout "The Fall of the House of Usher" is the estate itself. There are many hidden symbols on the exterior of the house. Upon arriving at the house, the narrator remarks "a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit" (Poe 1). The house is also described as having "bleak walls...vacant eye-like windows...a few white …show more content…

Roderick Usher is suffering from acuteness of the senses, making him sensitive to most lights, smells, food, and clothing, and hears strange sounds echoing throughout the house. He firmly believes the source of this disease is the house. However, Roderick still never leaves his home. Because of his illness, Roderick's windows are boarded up, and "feeble gleams of crimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes," (Poe 3). The red light may be referencing the color of blood. Many expensive things are decaying and draperies hang everywhere, reinforcing the sense of death and mystery. Throughout the rest of his room, "dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered." (Poe 4). It seems like Roderick does not care about the way his room looks. It is stated later in the text that Usher believes everything has emotions and refuses to change anything because of it. However, due to this, everything changes anyway, as it starts to fade away due to the lack of

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Imagery in Decay Topic: How Poe uses Imagery to further the plot in The Fall of the House of Usher Tentative thesis: Through the use of imagery Edgar Allan Poe shows a decrepit, dying family; by portraying the decay of both the house and those who reside in it Poe sets up the final fate of the two main characters in his short story. Topic sentence 1: Throughout the short story Poe uses the landscape and the very trees to give the house a supernatural life and induce horror in the reader.

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When he talks about the house he gives it human characteristics. For example in Disfiguration in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’; or, Poe’s Mad Lines it states “in other words, the house, described in human terms with its “eye-like windows” making it sound like the house is a face (Pahl 1). The way the narrator describes listening to Roderick talk gives human characteristics to an inanimate object. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” he states “to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar” explaining how the guitar speaks like a human (Poe11). There are multiple examples of personification used in this dark short story.

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The crack in the house and the dead trees imply that the house and its surroundings are not sturdy or promising. These elements indicate that a positive outcome is not expected. The thunder,strange light, and mist create a spooky feeling for the reader. In "The Fall of the house of Usher," Edgar Allan Poe creates suspense and fear in the reader. He also tries to convince the reader not to let fear overcome him.

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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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The narrator feels “utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium” (“Fall of the House of Usher”474). The narrator openly confesses that he uses drugs and that he is depressed which can cloud a person 's judgement. By the end of the story the narrator becomes frighten by the house but says, “irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened --I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me --to certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence” (“The Fall of The House of Usher” 488). At this moment the narrator has become more frightened than ever and it is unlikely that see things for what

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In The Fall of the House of Usher the symbolism is displayed when the narrator sees the house and describes it as very creepy but clearly stated that he notices the crack of the House from the bottom to the very top of it. Here it is symbolizing the crack that both Roderick Usher and Madeline Usher for they both described as having a problem for they both had flaws and were about to die. Madeline had an illness no doctor could describe and was on the verge of dying and this caused her brother Roderick to go mad physically and emotionally. The crack was not just the house but both Roderick and Madeline all

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The fall of the house of usher uses a gothic tone throughout the story, in this case we can see different tones. Mood is the emotion or feeling produced by the piece. Throughout the story we see a dark, mysterious and somber mood. For example when the narrator said “I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound… I felt if creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions”. He created a creepy mood and a tone where you start to see that Roderick is going crazy, because he has started to hear and see things that are not

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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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