Suspense In The Fall Of The House Of Usher

In "The fall of the House of Usher" Poe uses many ways to demonstrate suspense, symbolism, and many gothic elements. In the story Poe expresses his ways of gothic and dark stories by stating the fact that there are super natural events that occur in the story Poe also uses suspense in the tory to show that the House of Usher is has supernatural events to keep the reader hooked on the story, Poe also decided to use symbolism to symbolize that the House of Usher was surrounded by negative events around the house.

In "the fall of the house of usher" Poe creates suspense in the reader, he also tries to convince the reader not to let fear overcome them. Poe tries to evoke suspense in the readers mind by using several different scenes. These elements

While the house was not actually haunted, as a horror stories usually are made up of," minute fungi overspread the whole exterior"(Poe294)there was a permeating gloom, and the sister's ability to withdraw in a cationic state that would make anyone unaware of the condition concluding that the person had died. The house, which was not bathed in in light, it was either always dark, or gloomy, "extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn", (299)"melancholy" was the frequently used; and the reference to the crack in the wall was to show that it was on its way to destruction. The narrator himself comments on the discerning properties of the aged house; "What is it, I paused to think, what was the it that's so unnerved me in the contemplation of the house of Usher" (307)? The house is further developed in the narrator's references to the house."...In this mansion of gloom (308). Even the surroundings serve the purpose. The narrator describes the landscape surrounding the house as having, "...an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent

the physique of the gray walls and the turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down"(Poe 294). The narrator is remarking on the Ushers strange behavior in the house, Roderick also had a firm belief in the atmosphere. Moreover, he states that the atmosphere has been responsible for the strangeness of his family and his habits. The narrator later describes his own superstition when he remarks," A cadaverous of complexion; an eye large liquid, and luminous beyond comparison"(297). He also describes feelings the alarm which he has as causeless, perhaps indicating that the house may in fact be having some effect on him. "The narrator leaves the Hose of Usher with a sense of supernatural fatality accomplished with no natural explanation,"(305). Throughout the story, Poe's imagery of the house and the inanimate objects inside serve to give a supernatural atmosphere to the story. By giving inanimate objects life-like characteristics, "perhaps the eye of scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn," (297). He is giving the house a supernatural quality. The supernatural element serves to make Poe's story more interesting and suspenseful in his treatment of the house's effect on its