Fear In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Fear is portrayed in all the stories with the allure of uncertainty and unpredictability. Throughout gothic literature these traits are very common in attempt to frighten the reader. Humans often times fear the unknown, so when a story has an unpredictable twist the reader doesn’t know what to expect next in the story making them uncertain, which makes the events that take place much more intense or horrifying.
The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe, shows how fear transformed the depressed main character, making him feel uncertain in his own home, and to the point where he eventually gets scared to death. “Upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eyelike windows-upon a few rank sedges- and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees- with an utter depression of soul (Poe 14).” The house doesn’t really have these emotions, they author is using the narrator’s imagination to

As the family was getting ready for dinner a man who claims he once lived in the family home asks if he could look around outside of the house. Without knowing his intentions the mother becomes worried exclaiming that he could be anyone, a thief, a mentally disturbed person or even a murderer, because of how fear of the unknown is terrifying when imagination gets involved, fear overcomes her, making her imagine the worst possible scenario. “I wasn’t the one who opened the door to that man in the first place,’ the mother said, coming up behind the father and touching his arm. Without seeming to know what he did the father violently jerked his arm and thrust her away (Oates 76).” This quote shows how the strange man coming into their home, interrupting their ordinary life puts the parents on edge, resulting with an argument between the two of them and the father becoming aggressive toward the