Home: The House of Usher and The Yellow PAper

1668 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Analysis of fall of the house of usher by edgar allan poe

A person’s home is a good representation of himself or herself. The way one takes care of their home can tell a story about the owner of the home and its residence. The members of the home may also affect the situations that take place, creating good or bad circumstances. In a story, a character's home does just that. The more or less elaborate it is explained, the more detail is presented about how the character is or will be. In “The House of Usher” and “The Yellow Wallpaper”, the elaborate descriptions of the characters and their homes set the story and can predict the outcome. A writer’s home and view of life may have a profound impact on their idea of home and therefore their writing that is produced. When the story begins in “The House of Usher,” the narrator over exaggerates the description of the house in an attempt to explain his own disgust with the home. Reading Edgar Allan Poe’s stories seem to follow a pattern of dark feelings. His descriptions can give the reader an image in their head of a negative look and sets them up for a negative story. By writing about an eerie broken home such as “The House of Usher”, one could say the exaggerative descriptions are creating images that can depict the possible dreariness of a household. The dreariness may have consumed the residents of the household, which is mirrored in the state of the house. Poe has been said to have grown up in a broken home extending into a difficult childhood and deaths of his loved ones continuing to be a large portion of his life (Giammarco 28). By this mindset, a home can easily fall into a morbid trap of misery and unfortunate deaths. Poe’s drinking problem may also influence the way Poe may see home (Giammarco 22). An alcoholic may... ... middle of paper ... ...nts to analyze and attempt to understand their reasoning. Without their personal experiences of home, we may not have had such brilliant works created with such descriptive information. Works Cited "Charlotte Perkins Gilman." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Nov 25 2013, 11:59 http://www.biography.com/people/charlotte-perkins-gilman-9311669. "From Woman to Human: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Radcliffe Institute For Advanced Study at Harvard University. Harvard University, n.d. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/exhibit/woman-human-life-and-work-charlotte-perkins-gilman Giammarco, Erica. "U of S Central Authentication Service (CAS)." U of S Central Authentication Service (CAS). N.p., Jan. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013. http://www.sciencedirect.com.cyber.usask.ca/science/article/pii/S0191886912003650?np=y

Show More
Related

  • The Three Unique Characters of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher

    674 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Three Unique Characters of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Fall Of The House Of Usher

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    In “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe, a man named Roderick Usher sent an urgent letter to the narrator- an old childhood friend, asking him to come to his home to keep him company. Roderick explained he has a nervous illness and would appreciate the presence of a supportive friend. Even though the narrator only remembers Usher as a childhood memory, he immediately left to go see him. His time at the House of Usher was terrifying. After always seeing the house as a mystery from the outside and knowing that their family always ended in an “unsatisfactory conclusion,” (Poe 2706) the narrator experienced the disturbing trapped inside life of Roderick Usher and his twin sister, Madeline.

    Read More

  • Edgar Allan Poe Exposed in The Fall Of The House Of Usher

    1285 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edgar Allan Poe was a unique man that most people could not understand. Many recognize that he is a talented writer with a very strange and dark style. One of his most well known short stories is “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.” Many argue the different meanings of this story and how it is symbolic to his life. Poe was a very confused individual who needed to express himself, he accomplished this through the short story of “The Fall Of The House Of Usher.” Through this story, Edgar was trying to show the fear he had for him self, he did not understand him self so therefore Poe ran from his own personality and mind. This story enables the reader to take a look at Poe’s mind and reveals some of the details that led him into his own insanity.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Fall Of The House Of Usher

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story the time is autumn and Poe creates a spooky setting by using this unnamed narrator to describe the house as he see it and the emotions the house gave him. The narrator describe the clouds as ethereal glowing, the lake as dark and scary and fissure running down the middle of the house. Poe uses an unnamed narrator to explain the emotions the house gave him, but no words could amount to how horrifying the house was. The narrator felt gloom. Poe’s continuance use of dark diction “dreary, dark, gloom, and dull” creates a mood of horror in “The Fall of the House of Usher”. The setting is everything in story like Wilson stated, "The setting... plays an integral part in the story because it establishes an atmosphere of dreariness and decay"(page 55). The dreariness was the darkness Poe mentioned that fell upon the house of usher. The trees died, and the house surroundings became gloomy.

    Read More

  • Rewriting The Yellow Wallpaper

    2239 Words  | 5 Pages

    Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison: 1990.

    Read More

  • Setting In Edger Allan Poe's The Fall Of The House Of Usher

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    Setting in Edger Allan Poe’s short story The Fall of the House of Usher setting plays an important role in enlightening the reader to the inner ambitions of the characters in the story. After the narrator describes the physical house as he arrives the reader can see the similarities between the setting and Roderick Usher’s illness but as the story progresses, the narrator’s description of the settings that he encounters exhibit his decline as a rational thinker in the nightmarish surroundings he has found himself in. As explained in Short Fiction: An Introductory Anthology, Poe’s use of setting focus’ on emotion inflicted by the setting, “‘internal’ detail that places the emphasis squarely on the relationship between the observer and the setting.” (Lynch and Rampton xvi). Poe sets the rational narrator against the irrational world of the Usher’s and the reader can follow the narrator’s decline through the descriptions of setting. This is shown as he arrives at the house to console his boyhood friend, during his stay in the house, and in his escape from the collapsing home.

    Read More

  • Use Of Criticism In 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher' By Edgar Allan Poe

    1005 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poe shows how trivial the Gothic genre can become when overusing darkness and decay. From the moment the narrator even gets close to the House of Usher he notices that every bit of vegetation surrounding the mansion is dead and grey, and that there is a “pestilent and mystic vapor”

    Read More

  • Examples Of Romanticism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

    499 Words  | 1 Pages

    In Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the narrator is visiting a childhood friend, Roderick Usher, who is mentally ill. Upon first arrival, the decaying trees and murky ponds around the house lead the narrator to observe that the house has an evil and diseased atmosphere. While visiting, the narrator stays isolated from the outside world, which drives both Roderick and the narrator into absurdity and lunacy. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe uses dark romanticism to illustrate the idea that isolation and evil nature can drive someone into madness and insanity.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Fall Of The House Of Usher And The Tell Tale Heart

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poe sets the setting as dark and gloomy, most likely to give the reader the death is in the air vibe in the beginning of “The Fall of the House of Usher”. “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think - what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher?” The narrator, who is nameless throughout the whole story, receives a letter from an old childhood friend. According to the letter Roderick, the narrator’s childhood friend, has invited the narrator

    Read More

  • Romanticism In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

    1396 Words  | 3 Pages

    The short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” by Edgar Allan Poe is filled with mystical and gothic tale that shows house actually the house of the Usher’s is such a demonic and horrifying place. Demonstrates the relationship between Roderick and his twin sister Madeline and also the narrator. Shows how the events that occur really torture the people’s souls that are in the house and how the people have these mental issues and horrific thoughts.

    Read More

  • Why Is Home Important In The Great Gatsby

    494 Words  | 1 Pages

    The home of someone has always been a huge impact in peoples' life's and specially in authors; in the book Home: American Writers Remember Rooms of Their Own, Sharon Sloan discusses how eighteen American writers evoke rooms from their past, bringing back their history and the ideals and realities of families, memories and the importance of a home. Making the readers realize how fundamental is to have family

    Read More

  • Usher Literary Devices

    1362 Words  | 3 Pages

    At the very beginning of The Fall of the House of Usher, what seized my attention was the strong, almost severe comparison that Poe used. “[It was] an utter depression of soul which...can[not] be compare[d] to [any] earthly sensation more properly than the after-dream of the reveler upon opium” (69). This phrase particularly stood out because it characterized the depression which the “narrator” felt. Based on his previous descriptions, one would know the general mood about house, but this comparison to such a severe occurrence as drug addiction really brings the comparison to life. This created a deeper connection to the readers, because it creates vivid imagery of how melancholy the house is. This is also a really important introductory point,

    Read More

  • The Prophet's Camel Bell, And The Tomorrow-Tamer By Margaret Laurence

    280 Words  | 1 Pages

    Some say home is in a place, while others say it is in a person. A person’s concept of home depends on a myriad of factors but, of course, the idea of home has a different meaning for everyone. However, it is possible to conclude where the feeling of home comes from if a single person is analyzed. The perfect person to examine is Margaret Laurence. With her various travels to different places, it is intriguing to learn about what she considers home. Thus, in order to conclude what home can be and mean, a number of texts will be analyzed. Accordingly, “A Bird in the House”, This Side Jordan, The Prophet’s Camel Bell, and “The Tomorrow-Tamer” are all titles by Laurence that will be used as a reference in this essay in order to better understand

    Read More

  • Comparison Of Life And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

    507 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the house the man starts thinking about marrying his own sister. The fall of the house of usher has a horrific mood. The mansion is dark and silent all day and the man started to hear things. Many other unbelievable things happened in the house the man sees the windows as eye shapes, and seeing shadows moving. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Fall of the House of Usher is telling us if you’re alone in a house that is dark and silent then you will be paranoid and then eventually you will go crazy. Poe writes dark and horrifying stories, but Longfellow wrote a poem about his own

    Read More

  • Characteristics Of Dark Romanticism

    1870 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the short story, Poe, similarly to Hawthorne in The House of the Seven Gables, sets the story in a dark house where no light or happiness seems to exist. Poe describes the house “as the melancholy House of Usher” that causes a “sense of insufferable gloom to pervade [the narrator’s] spirit” (Poe 264). This is crucial because it shows Poe incorporate the Dark Romantic quality of a gloomy, supernatural-like atmosphere. The haunting exterior creates a sense of dread which builds suspicion and suspense throughout the story. Poe describes the house as having “minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web from the eaves… and a crumbling condition of the individual stones…woodwork which has rotted for years” (Poe 265). In this quote, Poe describes the decaying state of the house and seems to compare it to the person inside the house, Rodrick Usher. The windows resemble his eyes and the fungi is his hair. This is important because Poe expresses the Dark Romantic qualities of suffering in the human spirit. Just like the outside of the house is falling apart, so is Rodrick’s mental stability and sanity; Rodrick suffers inside the house and his mind is deteriorating and decaying. Keith Neilson writes how “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a Dark Romantic work because it contains a “haunted atmosphere, darkness, and evilness” (Neilson). Poe writings and works are heavily layered with Dark Romantic ideas to visually display the supernatural and mystical scenes that he presents to the readers. Edgar Allan Poe writes of evilness and suffering to expose the readers to the faults of humanity and the darkness that exists in the world. His powerful and dark descriptions not only leave a lasting mark on readers’ emotions but an impression on the literary world as

    Read More

More about Home: The House of Usher and The Yellow PAper

Open Document