Theme Of Romanticism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Romanticism is the movement in the arts and literature which originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual. In The Fall of the House of Usher, romanticism in its meaning of the 18th century is present in three ways. The first element of Romanticism, which I found to really stick out to me, is the individual himself. His name is Mr. Roderick Usher he lives with his sister in an old country estate. Roderick is a very strange man whom lives in a very dull, dark, and scary house with a very strange family. The family tree of the Usher family is one that never branches of to other family members. This means that the parents had married their siblings and then their children married

The first effect the narrator brings to the story is when he describes how the weather was the day he arrived at the house of Usher. He says, "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens,"¦."The narrator also says that the plant life around the property is not kept up with decaying trees and single stemmed sedges around the perimeter of the estate. The setting in the house is described by the author as "I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity- an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn- a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernable and leaden-hued." This description given by the author shows how the up keep of the house is not that great which gives the house an even scarier effect of horror. The elements of Romanticism have a big influence on how the story is seen through readers' eyes.