Home: The House of Usher and The Yellow PAper

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A person’s home is a good representation of himself or herself. The way one takes care of their home can tell a story about the owner of the home and its residence. The members of the home may also affect the situations that take place, creating good or bad circumstances. In a story, a character's home does just that. The more or less elaborate it is explained, the more detail is presented about how the character is or will be. In “The House of Usher” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the elaborate descriptions of the characters and their homes set the story and can predict the outcome. A writer’s home and view of life may have a profound impact on their idea of home and therefore their writing that is produced. When the story begins in “The House of Usher,” the narrator over exaggerates the description of the house in an attempt to explain his own disgust with the home. Reading Edgar Allan Poe’s stories seem to follow a pattern of dark feelings. His descriptions can give the reader an image in their head of a negative look and sets them up for a negative story. By writing about an eerie broken home such as “The House of Usher”, one could say the exaggerative descriptions are creating images that can depict the possible dreariness of a household. The dreariness may have consumed the residents of the household, which is mirrored in the state of the house. Poe has been said to have grown up in a broken home extending into a difficult childhood and deaths of his loved ones continuing to be a large portion of his life (Giammarco 28). By this mindset, a home can easily fall into a morbid trap of misery and unfortunate deaths. Poe’s drinking problem may also influence the way Poe may see home (Giammarco 22). An alcoholic may... ... middle of paper ... ...nts to analyze and attempt to understand their reasoning. Without their personal experiences of home, we may not have had such brilliant works created with such descriptive information. Works Cited "Charlotte Perkins Gilman." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Nov 25 2013, 11:59 http://www.biography.com/people/charlotte-perkins-gilman-9311669. "From Woman to Human: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Radcliffe Institute For Advanced Study at Harvard University. Harvard University, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/exhibit/woman-human-life-and-work-charlotte-perkins-gilman Giammarco, Erica. "U of S Central Authentication Service (CAS)." U of S Central Authentication Service (CAS). N.p., Jan. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. http://www.sciencedirect.com.cyber.usask.ca/science/article/pii/S0191886912003650?np=y

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