Examples Of Figurative Language In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

In the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe, many descriptive words are used to create an eerie mood. Poe’s use of figurative language allows readers to delve into his chaotic view of loss and to experience the mood of despair. Poe uses figurative language to quickly draw the reader into the story. For example, in the beginning of the story, he personifies the house in saying that it has “vacant eye-like windows,”(Poe 294) and that the house’s horrific appearance is that of “the hideous dropping off of the veil.”(294) His descriptions of the house are luring in the reader in preparation for the story that has already begun. Poe uses words that draw attention such as “dull”(293), “dark”(293), “dreary”(293), “melancholy”(293), …show more content…

In the beginning of the story, the narrator says that he “...at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”(293) This leaves the reader imagining the appearance of the house and wonder why the house looks so gloomy and desolate. The figurative language use of the shades being “drew on” also attracts attention and evokes feeling and image. The evening does not have actual curtains to be drawn, but the darkness of the evening does close in. Also, near the start of the story, the narrator describes the large, low, vaporous cloud that is wrapped around the mansion; “--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 vapour, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.”(296) The cloud oppresses the reader, making them anxious with anticipation. The cloud is frighteningly described with human like …show more content…

Characterization developed in Roderick Usher is represented in the narrator’s descriptions of Usher’s looks. “The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.”(298) The hollowness of Roderick’s face, careless hair hygienics, and the simple inhumane looks that he possesses reveal pieces of his personality that do not connote a healthy or normal man. The narrator’s voicings of Roderick’s actions also reveal a great deal about his demeanor. “He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odours of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.”(298) Usher was very particular and these facts reveal even more of just how strange and mysterious he