Insanity In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

Gothic literature uses twisted themes of insanity, murder, sin, and guilt to create captivating stories that question the natural integrity of humans. Edgar Allan Poe is just one of the many gothic writers who turns Romanticism into a dark study of the human mind. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe contemplates the effects of insanity on a family that is already suffering tremendously. Poe’s short story illustrates a mysterious tone when both the setting and the plot are analyzed.

Edgar Allan Poe uses the setting of this story to create an air of mystery that lends itself to the tone of the story. When reading the story, it becomes clear that no questions about the setting are ever truly answered, and while the reader is given

tons of detail to create a perfect image, they are never allowed to fully understand why the setting is the way it is. In fact, even the room the narrator is staying in is mysterious to both the narrator and the reader. Poe wants to have a tone of mystery when the narrator says, “The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered,” (416). The overuse of adjectives to describe the room definitely appears to be used to compensate for the lack of an answer for the question of why the room is put together so poorly. Clearly, the narrator uses detail to convey a deeper meaning of mystery. In fact, at the beginning of the story, a similar technique is used when the narrator first comes to the house. When describing the exterior of the house, the narrator confesses, “I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit,” (412). After reading this portion of the story, the reader is left confused, wondering why the house is so exceptionally eerie, and the narrator cannot even answer this question. He looks at the house—and the room—with such curiosity and describes it in a mysterious tone to symbolize his lack of understanding. Going beyond his use of setting, Poe’s plot strengthens the overall tone of the story.
Plot is an essential part of a story and might even be the driving force behind a good story; however, Poe goes beyond that and uses his plot to make the mysterious tone more apparent.

Just like with the setting, the same can be said about the plot: no questions are truly answered. In the story, the narrator—whoever he is—never fully discloses the details of the lady’s illness. Instead of providing a vivid description of what’s wrong with the lady, he simply states, “She succumbed . . . to the prostrating power of the destroyer,” (418). By leaving out specific details of the lady’s “destroyer,” the reader is left in the dark, along with the narrator, who doesn’t appear to know much more than what is written. The narrator divulges a lot of information for things that are unimportant, but all key plot elements are kept secret, creating a tone of mystery. If the narrator knows what’s going on with the lady, more likely than not, he would tell the reader because he hasn’t left out any other details. Not only does the narrator leave out specific details, he also recognizes that he’ll never know much about what’s going on; he lets the reader know this by saying, “The lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more,” (418). By acknowledging that he’s never going to see her again while living, he’s also admitting that he’s not sure what’s going on with her; he’s saying that he can’t understand the lady because he doesn’t know the illness she suffers with. If the narrator

is confused, there is no way for the reader to understand any better, and a mysterious tone is expressed in the narrator’s confusion towards the plot.
In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe uses setting and plot to convey a mysterious tone. In an attempt to reveal the dark side of Romanticism, Poe tries to use the technique of unified effect to better his story, but ultimately, it fails as the excessive detail takes away from the actual plot of the story. The gothic side of this short story is never given the time to fully show as it’s hidden under layers of specification. What would be a great study of the effects of insanity on a suffering family is undeveloped and a small fraction of the whole story. While the setting and plot are both used effectively to create a tone of mystery, the short story lacks many of the powerful elements and captivating themes that the reader expects from gothic literature because of Poe’s failed attempt at creating a unified effect.