“The Fall of the House of Usher” is a great short story that shows all of the elements of Romanticism. All elements of Romanticism are used to great detail in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” all of the elements are easily interpreted and explained throughout the story using descriptions and symbolism, this makes a single affect is easy to attain, which makes the story a much better story because everything ties together. The way Edgar Allen Poe wrote this story he used each and every line to the fullest extent which helped develop the story as a whole. The great detail that Poe wrote into his story helps develop the plot and develop a connection between the actual plot of the story and the theme. Also the detail and the symbolism help develop a single affect of horror in the story because the way every single detail is explained. The elements of Romanticism are: Nature, Individual, Picture Sequence-exotic setting, Supernatural, Imagination- exploring psyche, and Country-developed national literature. All of these elements were vividly described in great detail for every reader to understand. The elements were explained using symbolism and vivid description that helps the reader connect the element of Romanticism to the plot of the story. With vivid descriptions given by the author the setting is brought to life in full color and the reader feels like he or she is actually in the story.
The first element of Romanticism, which I found to really stick out to me, is the individual himself. His name is Mr. Roderick Usher he lives with his sister in an old country estate. Roderick is a very strange man whom lives in a very dull, dark, and scary house with a very strange family. The family tree of the Usher family is one that never
The Essay on Elements Of Romanticism In Stokers Dracula
During the Romantic Era, Bram Stoker created a timeless monster in his novel, Dracula. Stoker uses a series of letters and journal entries to tell the story form a first person point of view. The Count, for whom the book is named, seems to be invincible to mere man. Stoker uses his character of Dracula to reflect the elements of romanticism through his supernatural powers, a fascination with youth ...
branches of to other family members. This means that the parents had married their siblings and then their children married their siblings and on and on. This is what makes the family so very strange and interesting to look at. The man behind the final generation of the Usher family is Roderick, he lives a very dark, dull, and happy less life. Roderick finds happiness in the dark and feels depressed and vulnerable from the sunlight itself. Mr. Usher looks as if he were dead or almost dead because of the lack of sunlight and the lack of activity. Usher is described by the narrator as “A cadaverousness of complexion: an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison: lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formation; a finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than weblike softness and tenuity- these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten.”(Poe p.298) The way the narrator describes Roderick he says gives the impression that Roderick is looking like he is already dead with the pale color and frail bones. This helps contribute to a single effect of horror in the story because how Roderick looks even though he is still alive. The way Roderick lives in connection to the way the upkeep of the house is that of many similarities. The narrator at the beginning of the story describes the house of the Usher’s by saying “…a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.” (Poe p.297)
Another element of romanticism that was brought out quit well was Imagination- exploring psyche; this is brought in by a main theme. This theme is that a perfectly sane man can go insane by being around an insane person. The narrator comes to the aid of his friend because Roderick writes a letter to the narrator asking him to come to his house for a visit. One major theme, which is acquainted with the psyche of the narrator, is that a sane person can become insane because of the impact of a secondary person this person is Roderick Usher. When Madeline Usher is locked in her casket for what hoped for Roderick for the last time the narrator describes how Roderick is feeling, “ At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I behold him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wander that his condition terrified-that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet uncertain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.”(Poe p.304) This passage shows how the narrator knows that he is going insane because of the time he spent around Roderick. The event that affects both of the characters the most in this story is when Madeline finds a way to get of her casket and is able to get up to the room where Roderick and the narrator are reading a book. The narrator and Roderick both hear sounds that were described in the book actually going on in the house. Not to Roderick’s
The Essay on Roderick Usher House External World
As vague as Edgar Allan Poe could be at times with the theme of one of his stories, The Fall of the House of Usher contains a theme which is decipherable with little energy expended. The story can be interpreted as an artist who becomes detached from the external world and therefore loses his ability to create art. This also results in his ultimate demise. We first see evidence of this very early ...
surprise Madeline made it upstairs where she saw Roderick and ran towards him and when they both meat they collapsed dead on top of each other. This is where we see the
narrator find out that he has to get out of the house before he goes insane, so he heads straight for the door and rushes out. Once he made it safely out of the house the house collapses because of the one flaw in the house, the single crack. The narrator headed out before he had completely gone insane and made it out with his life. This reflects the single effect of horror in the story when Madeline comes and visit’s Roderick and they both die and then house collapses because of the single crack in the house.
The Picture Sequence-exotic setting is the next Romantic element that is vividly described in this short story. The setting is a major connection between the individuals, Roderick and Narrator, and the single effect of horror. The first effect the narrator brings to the story is when he describes how the weather was the day he arrived at the house of Usher. He says “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens,….” The narrator also says that the plant life around the property is not kept up with decaying trees and single stemmed sedges around the perimeter of the estate. The setting in the house is described by the author as “I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity- 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 tarn- a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernable and leaden-hued.”(Poe p.298) This description given by the author shows how the up keep of the house is not that great which gives the house an even scarier effect of horror.
The Essay on Analyzing Single Effect “Hop-Frog”
Edgar Allan Poe believed that a short story should be written to create a single effect. He believed that every detail or incident of the story should contribute to the effect. The overall effect of “Hop-Frog” is the theme of revenge that is seen throughout the story. There are certain details and situations in the story that add to creating this effect. At the beginning of the story, ...
The elements of Romanticism have a big influence on how the story is seen through readers’ eyes. The single effect in this short story is easily attained because the author uses the elements to tie all of the themes, descriptions, and symbolism together to attain a single effect. In this story the single effect is horror, this can be proven true because of the way Poe describes the setting, the individual, the psyche, and nature. The single effect of horror is shown in every line written by Poe because he uses picture like descriptions of every event that is going on so the reader feels a sense of actually being there and living through the event. The single effect of horror is written well into the story, if a person knew the themes of this story they could understand the whole story and be able to explain it. This story is a well-rounded story, which keeps the same themes throughout the whole story to give the reader a better understanding of how things actually happened in the story.
