- Anti Transcendentalist
- Gothic
- Amateur Psychoanalytical
- Vampirism
- Madness
Critical Analysis
Questions
1- Discuss the angle of vision in "The Fall of the House of Usher." Who, if not Poe himself, is telling the story? Why Has Poe chosen this narrator? How would the story change if it were told by an omniscient author?
- Single person narrative
- Usher's childhood companion
- Previous, untainted history with historical knowledge
- Narrator is closest friend but doesn't know about twins
- Justified by Usher's thoughts
2-How does the atmosphere (the quality of the setting, the mood deriving from the setting) function? To what extent does it describe qualities of the psyche?
- Depressing and oppressive- dark.
- Dreary, melancholy, insufferable gloom, desolate, terrible, bleak.
- Atmosphere and setting function as imagery.
- State of disrepair/ feeling of dread correlate with Usher family line- shambles.
3- The plot of the story is improbable; the atmosphere of horror exaggerated; the character of Usher melodramatic. Does Poe, nevertheless, manage to move the reader? What in the reader is he able to touch?
- Who is the reader?
- Lengthy exposition
- Blind person
- Monotonously ghastly
- Jaded- horror films for kicks and giggles
- Sensory
- Sympathy for narrator/ Usher's plight
- Indignation at situation
- Themes of evil, isolation, and fear.
- Evil in gloom, family incest and illness [demon possession/madness?]
- Isolation crops up with the twins, the only friend, the house itself and incest.
- The fear at the sight of the house, Roderick's madness, and murder/ death.
FACT:
The Fall of the House of Usher was first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine
The poem "The Haunted Palace" was first published in April 1839 in Nathan Brooks' American Museum Magazine.
Media Frenzy
