House Of Usher

In literature, a tragedy refers to a series of unfortunate events by which one or more of the literary characters in the story experience several misfortunes, which finally culminate into a disaster of ‘epic proportions’. The dark sense of tragedy not only permeates the plotline but also the characters as though each was experiencing the impressions and emotions that make up a truly tragic figure. The author, Edgar Allan Poe, is very well known for writing dark and mysterious stories. The short story describes the final hours of a family tormented by tragedy and the legacy of the past. The story is considered a tragedy because of the series of events which lead up to the actual fall of the house of usher.

The first connection that would make a reader consider this story to be a tragedy is the tone. There is a sorrowful tone that flows throughout the entire short story. In this story “From the beginning to the end of the tale, then, tone is seen as an adjunct to the incidents” (Evans 138). The narrator only went to see his childhood friend, Roderick Usher, because he felt some type of sorrow for him. The narrator stated that once he got a glimpse of The House of Usher, “…a sense of

Roderick is being tormented by his own idea of fear instead of fearing anything in particular. He deeply believes that, “In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR” (Poe). There is also a foreshadowing idea that Madeline could be the physical embodiment of his fears. The isolation and atmosphere in the story are important, for they contribute to his developing insanity. Due to Roderick and Madeline being the only ones in the house “His fear remains vague and undefined, and having no vent for it, he turns into himself for explanation” (Obuchowski