The Fall of the House Of Usher

2 Pages 568 Words

One of the core themes of the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, is that of the nature of the house itself. The manner it is described and the way it is so puzzling. Another main theme of this tale is the nature of the people that reside in the dwelling. They are described in nearly the same manner all through the narrative. In that way, they have several things in common with one other. What is clearly similar about the way all these things are refered to is the sense of a bad feeling, of dread, showing how bad things are for the people and the house. These similarities are laid out extremely well in the story and I believe they are meant be strongly considered when reading it.
At the start of the tale there is a very negative feeling being connected to the appearance of the house. Poe especially uses a couple of tactics to try and make you feel negatively about the house. He used phrases such as: “insufferable gloom,” “vacant,” “black and lurid,” and the “rank sedges.” These are obviously meant to convey a bad connotation to the house. Poe writes that the house has a “wild inconsistency” and describes that each individual stone is starting to decay and fall apart. This suggests that the house has many problems that could possibly lead to the destruction of a house. Its hard to pick up this as foreshadowing, but as the reader continues the story it becomes clearer and clearer. The house has a kind of gothic feeling to it. Another common word used in describing the house is ghostly. The story is lined with phrases such as, “through many dark and intricate passages” and “ebon blackness” which also set the sense of darkness. They all set up the idea that some frightful event is going to take place soon. These devices, along with a some others, help to connect the house to Roderick and Lady Madeline.
When the speaker first sees Roderick after a long interval of time, he remarks that he resemb...