the sound of smashing glass threw me back onto my bed like a rag doll in shock, like a bolt from the blue. Tears started to fill my eyes. The room was dark except for the orange streetlight that is streaming in through the window, casting long shadows across the wooden floor and glowing on my face. Slowly I slide out of bed, pressing my warm feet on the cold, silent floor. Creeping towards the door, I hear the floorboards creak in the hall.
This adds to the atmosphere of darkness, because all the 'windows had been walled up'. In addition, there is a feeling of old age and this is portrayed when Dickens talks about the windows being 'rustily barred' and how the house was made from 'old bricks'. The mood is created by the portrayal of the dull, dusky and dispirited house. This is emphasised even more when Estella tells Pip about 'Satis House' meaning 'Enough House'. This could have two implications; one meaning is that the house is enough to satisfy anyone.
I reached the decrepit staircase leading up the the owners mother's bedroom, the never-ending stairs seemed imposing and made me think of them as a gateway to hell. As I began to climb, I felt unsettled and paused. When I tried to move again I found that I couldn't. There was something gripping me by my shoes, tearing at my legs. Then suddenly it let go and I lurched forwards, bashing my knees against the splintered step .
I felt something tearing at my delicate skin, its raw frame chaining me to stained walls. I manage to ease my eyes open, and saw a miniscule light bulb dangling from the ceiling which was the only means of light in this diminutive room, a room that entrapped me in its cold embrace. The light flicked on and of, mesmerizing my every sense. Pungent stenches of rotting flesh hung lazily in the chilling air. An ominous oak door stood menacingly above me, fixating its empty stare at me.
In the short story, Poe, similarly to Hawthorne in The House of the Seven Gables, sets the story in a dark house where no light or happiness seems to exist. Poe describes the house “as the melancholy House of Usher” that causes a “sense of insufferable gloom to pervade [the narrator’s] spirit” (Poe 264). This is crucial because it shows Poe incorporate the Dark Romantic quality of a gloomy, supernatural-like atmosphere. The haunting exterior creates a sense of dread which builds suspicion and suspense throughout the story. Poe describes the house as having “minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web from the eaves… and a crumbling condition of the individual stones…woodwork which has rotted for years” (Poe 265).
In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Poe’s use of dark, descriptive words allow him to establish an eerie mood. Poe’s unique style of writing along with his foreshadowing vocabulary is significant in creating a suspenseful gothic story. At the beginning of the short story, Poe describes the House of Usher to be “dull”, “oppressive”, and “dreary” (1265). His choice of words strongly emphasizes a mood of darkness and suspense as he builds on the horrific aspects of this daunting tale. At first glimpse, the house itself is surrounded by the feeling of “insufferable gloom”, (1265) “[t]here was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an unredeemed dreariness of thought [...]” (1265).
Up stairs it was even darker. I saw a long narrow hallway with a lot of doors on both sides and on the end. I checked all of the doors and I could only get into one of them. I walked into the one that I could get into and heard someone yelling and pleading. I grew scared but then noticed it wasn't a person.
By this time my eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting just enough to make out the cabin-like interior around me.It was nearly bare other than the small moth eaten couch and rotting coffee table. This place had to have been abandoned for several years. I reluctantly started to crawl towards the conjoined kitchen, in fear of falling if I stood up, and began searching for something to help my bleeding scalp. I felt around the broken cabinets and countertops to no avail. I opened a rather odd looking cabinet, still in perfect condition, and reached inside, but quickly pulled back my hand in shock.
I tenderly reached out and flicked the light switch. It was just as I had thought, the light didn't work. There must have been a fault with the wire. I looked back, the hall light casting a thin beam down the stairs. It would take me too long to venture back, so I hesitantly departed from the only strand of remaining light and entered the dark void.
Iniquity - Fictional Writing Something in the bed begins to stir. A face can be seen tinted by the pale-cold moonlight revealing its twisted and scarred features. An overwhelming sense of injustice, gloom and sorrow can be felt within the tiny room. The lips are thin and cracked, weak and coarse, like the rest of the ghostly white skin. Slowly an eyelid begins to creak open, underneath an eye like a wispy crystal ball revealing a small dark storm welling up in the middle is seen.