Gothic Elements in Edgar Allan Poe's Work

Edgar Allan Poe was classified as a brooding romantic. Brooding romantics believed that humans had a capacity for evil. Even though brooding romantics has the opposite of romanticism belief, both happened during the same time period. Poe’s short story The Fall Of The House of Usher is gothic literature through the use of grotesque characters, bizarre situations and violent events. The first gothic literature characteristic is grotesque characters. When the narrator first meets “the physician of the family” as he goes up the stairs to see Roderick Usher, this is a sign that something is wrong with one of the Ushers to have a physician be at their house (Poe 408). As the narrator looks at Roderick he notices his unhealthy pale skin, glossy

Roderick “suffers from a morbid acuteness of the senses”, that makes him effected by light, sound, taste, smell, and tactile things (Poe 409). His physically and mental illness has caused him to not leave the mansion for years. Madeline Usher is Roderick’s twin sister and if she dies Roderick becomes the last Usher alive. Madeline suffers from a disease that baffles her physicians. The disease makes her have a lack of interest, temporary episodes of a trancelike condition and a gradual wasting away of the person. The narrator saw a glimpse of her walk by and that would probably be the last time he would see her, because they thought she would die soon. The second gothic literature characteristic is bizarre situations. The narrator gets a letter from Roderick Usher, which he knew in boyhood and had not seen in many years. The letter mentions Roderick’s acute illness and mental disorder and how the cheerfulness of the narrator’s visit will give him some relief. This is

Madeline “rendering her coffin, and the grating of iron hinges … her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault” is a violent event (Poe 422). She ripping and tearing her way through the coffin and out of the vault. When they see her standing there without the door she had blood upon her white robe. Then Madeline fell heavily inward on her brother, making him fall to the floor, as they are both now dead. Through her violent escape of the tomb she killed herself and her brother. After the narrator fled the mansion and crosses the road “the entire orb of the satellite burst … and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed … over the fragments of the “House of Usher.” (Poe 422). Both the Usher house and the Ushers had a violent fall. In conclusion Poe uses Roderick and Madeline Usher as grotesque characters. He used Roderick’s letter, the decrepit mansion, the entombment of Madeline, gaseous of outside, and knocking noise as bizarre situations. He finally used Madeline breaking out of her coffin and tomb, the death of Roderick and Madeline, and the fall of the house of Usher as violent events. All of these characteristics are part of gothic literature and Poe’s style of writing. This is why Poe is classified under the brooding