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During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens as the shades of the evening drew on with the view of the melancholy House of Usher Pg. 234) With these words, Edgar Allan Poe begins one of his most famous works. Poe was infamous for his constant imagery of death and decay that he used to produce a sense of terror in his stories. In order to achieve this horror he implemented many images of the latter in the descriptions of his settings. In The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe used death and nature to describe the actual exterior house itself. He described the house as having eye like windows (Pg. 234) and being covered by minute fungi hanging in a fine tangled web work from the eaves. (Pg. 236) Fungi eat off the dead remains of other organisms. Even his description of the elements surrounding the house portrays images of death, decay and an unredeemed dreariness (Pg. 234).
The barely perceptible fissure[which] made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn. (Pg. 236) Poe continuously refers to this fissure throughout the whole piece. This fissure is to be the eventual cause for the physical destruction of the house and the family itself. Darkness is the primary theme that Poe chooses to implement in his when describing the interior of the house. The somber tapestries of the walls [and] the ebon blackness of the floors (Pg. 236) and the dark, tattered draperies. (Pg. 242) all add to the eerie effect that Poe was trying to establish with his readers. The huge antique panels threw slowly back their ponderous and ebony jaws. (Pg. 245). Descriptions such as these allowed the reader to imagine something greater and darker / evil than themselves, which was intriguing to the average person and Poe knew this.
Darkness and blackness were two characteristics that were essential to the horror in Poe s stories. After Madeline emerged from the dead and killed her brother the narrator, while running away from his fear and terror, noticed the fissure again. This time the fissure was widening, and the House of Usher was no more. It had crumbled to the ground, representing the no longer human existence of the Ushers. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened-there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind-the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher (Pg. 245) ). Not only was the physical state of the House of Usher gone, but the ancient family name or dynasty, as it might be called, died also.
Isolation and paranoia caused the decay of the Usher roots. These elements, in addition to the setting created by Poe, created a perfect horror story which, because of Poe s unique style, people continue to enjoy to this day.
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Research essay sample on House Of Usher House Of Usher Pg Poe
