Poe

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One of the main characteristics that differentiate Poe from other Gothic writers is his style: he affirms that a short narrative is the best way to write instead of writing a long story because he considers that due to the long story’s size, the reader is not able to read the whole text on one sitting; he does not want to lose the effect, the shock that all the elements as a whole may cause in the reader. He treats the short story as a formula and he considers that before thinking of the story, the author should choose the effect he wants to create on the reader; this is what we call “the unity of effect”. This unity of effect is not only obtained by the narrative technique but also by the characters, settings and furniture that are always connected. What Poe gets by doing this is the ability of managing the emotions of the reader since he can make the reader experience a specific feeling.
According to Poe, after deciding the effect the author wants to create on the reader, he must start writing the story but only if he has decided how it is going to develop, from the very beginning till the end. From my point of view, this unity of effect also means that in the story should not appear any element that was not chosen by the author before starting to write the story.
From now on, I will specifically focus my attention on The Fall of the House of Usher. Poe’s main objective in this story is to produce a sense of fear in the reader, and in order to do this he is going to use several elements which are part of the story and which contribute to create this unity of effect, so every detail, however small it may be, forms this unity of effect.
First of all, I am going to analyze the effect the characters have on the story. As we ca...

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... alive, it seems that it does not die (as Roderick), so because of that, the fact that he is observing these pieces of furniture everyday makes him be even more and more mad.
Furthermore, and in order to finish with my essay, in relation to the narrative technique and language it should be said that everything is directed to produce a specific kind of terror. In order to create this feeling of fear, we notice a repetition of adjectives related to the darkness and strangeness of the landscape: “dull, gloom and soundless”. In addition, many other words that he uses are accompanied with an oppressing morbidity.
Its rhythm is proper of a funeral, with the use of alliteration as we can see here: “iciness, a sinking, a sickening…” as well as the use of anaphora: “I looked upon the scene before me, upon the mere house...” to emphasize the idea of the gloomy surrounding.

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