Fall Of The House Of Usher Essay

To define powerful verbal art, a reader must fully grasp the difference between works that have profound, lasting effects- and those that do not. Lucky for Poe’s readers, he is a members of those writers whose art is found in his words. He utilizes specific skills not only in Fall of the House of Usher, but also in every facet of the rest of his works. Specific to Fall of the House of Usher, Poe uses a set of artistic principles to make his writing come to life. In order to maintain the dark and gloomy sense the story strives for, Poe implemented the literary time period of Gothic Fiction, narrative style and symbolism into Fall of the House of Usher.
When hearing the phrase “Gothic Fiction”, it’s almost impossible to not assume Poe will have

Fall of the House of Usher as a title can mean the fall of Roderick Usher himself since it is his abode, or the fall of the Ushers, plural- as in the Usher family since both Roderick and Madeline die, or the literal meaning of the house that crumbles at the end. The foreshadowing in the title alone can send the reader in the direction of one out of three paths. The next instance of foreshadowing comes before the narrator enters the home, but as he is still observing the home with investigative eyes. He notes the crack going in a zigzag down the house, “Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which extending from the roof of the building in front...until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn” (1116). The narrator takes the time to note this “fissure” twice more in the story, and by the third time, it’s the fissure that gapes open and the Usher mansion falls. The intentional placement of the crack and the fact that the narrator makes mention to it three times adds to the fact that Fall of the House of Usher is indeed the epitome of a work of verbal