The Fall of the House of Usher

“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a classic horror story written by Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar wrote descriptively through the physical setting, the first person point of view, and the uniquely dynamic characters. These elements worked together to create suspense and kept the readers curious.

The first fiction of element begins in the very first paragraph. The unknown narrator described the day as a “dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year…”. The setting while the narrator was driving described the day as a cloudy day and in autumn. This season usually represents dying, which led the readers to the House of Usher. Next the narrator explains the landscape and exterior appearance of the house. “I looked upon the mere house, and the simple landscape feature of the domain-upon the bleak wall-upon the vacant eye-like windows-upon a few rank sedges-and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees”. In this one sentence there were numerous characteristics of the house that could be traced back to death. The bleak wall and vacant eye-like windows were both descriptions of the exterior of the house. These show how plain and dull the house looked from the narrator’s perspective. Next the narrator described the landscape, “ a few rank sedges- and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees”. This was a contradictory part of the sentence, because the narrator said this house was surrounded by a swamp-like area. Therefore, the tree should have had plenty of water to stay living. Yet the trees were described as having white trunks and the narrator even said they were decayed trees. All of these provide the reader with an idea of what the house looked like. A worn down house that hasn’t been renovated and could be pictured as the tr...

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...-long- many minutes, many hours, many days, have heard it-yet I dared not- I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb!”. Later on he also mumbles the words “I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin”, this proves the theory of Madeline being buried alive. At the end of the story, when Rodrick and the narrator were still in the room talking the door suddenly whips open. Rodricks then looked up and shrieked “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!”. At that moment Madeline had risen from the coffin where she was placed. In the next events Rodrick fell to his death of shocked and Madeline went over to the corpse of her brother. The narrator jolts out of the House of Usher, right after he exited the house crumbled into pieces. To add to the suspense there remained the blood red moon that hung over the house.