The Fall of the House of Ushe小论文r

1、The Gothic atmosphere in “The Fall of the House of Usher” 英语1班 Suky 201130850115.Introduction First of all, I will introduce the correlative information about the authorEdgar Allen Poe (1809-1849), an American poet, short-story writer and critic. He is acknowledged today as one of the brilliant and

2、original writers in American literature, at the same time , one of the controversial figures.( 周红英，2011，13). Also, he was a prolific and versatile writer in the 19th century America. And his works, ranging from fiction, legend, tales, and poetry to critical articles, influenced the course of literar

3、y criticism and literature itself. Today, he was remembered by his poems, horror tale because of his being a master of itand short stories, editor and literary critic.The Fall of the House of Usher was one of his famous masterpiece, whose article is not only means the fall of the real Ushers house b

4、ut also the fall of the Ushers family. Then I would like to summarize the contents of the novel. It was a story that happened during the whole of a dull, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, the narrator went to his friends named Usher, his friend in his childhood, who invited him to company

5、 Usher by sending him a letter, because Usher got psychological or mental illness. Usher, with his twin sister Madeline, lived in a melancholy and choking house, which is inherited from his family. Madeline was sick for many years, while her brother was oppressed by a mental disorder. The narrator c

6、ame with his goodness and wanted to comfort Usher. Until one day Usher told him that Madeline died. Actually it is he who en-coffined her too early, that means Usher buried her before she died or when she was still alive. However, she relive in a stormy night. She came out from the coffin and came u

7、p the upstairs where we were to get her revenge. When she fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, both she and her brother died, and the narrator came out of the house with panic. At the end of the story the house of Usher crushed down in to the well near by.The Fall of the House of Ushe

8、r is a short story of Gothic horror written in first-person point of view. It was first published in September 1839 in Burtons Gentlemans Magazine. In 1840-1845, Poe published it with other stories in Tales of the Grotesque and of the Arabesque. ( 周红英，2011，13) It is considered the best example of th

9、e Poes “totality”, where element and detail is related and relevant.(刘丽娜，2010）. It shows Poes ability to create emotional tone in his word, specially feelings of fear, doom and guilt. These emotion center on Roderick Usher who, like Poes many characters, suffer from an unnamed disease. Like the narr

10、ator in The Tell-Tale Heart , his disease cause his hyperactive senses.(刘丽娜，2010）. The theory of “Unity of Effect” is well demonstrated in The Fall of the House of Usher. And I am going to analyze this theory from its Gothic style and horror atmospheres. Gothicism The term “Gothic” derived from a co

11、nfluence of both history and architecture. The Gothic were a northern Germanic European people whose ways and beliefs differed largely from those of Greco-Roman classical civilization farther south. To the southern outlook, the Goths were wholly uncivilized and barbarous( 周红英，2011，13). Gothic novels

12、 usually depict mysterious and horrible love stories, which have much connection with terror, outrageous passion and super-naturalism in describing its plot, setting, characters, and the usage of writing techniques. .The Writing Techniques the Author Used to Create the “Unity of Effect”In the novel,

13、 what give us the most profound impression is the Gothic style and horror atmosphere from the house, three main characters, and its horrible and appealing plots. Poe did this horror novel successfully by using his luxurious language and his colorful imaginations. Besides, we should know that this no

14、vel is a Gothic novel. And the following focus on the writing techniques the author used to create the “Unity of Effect”. Poes imagery and evoke a chilling and supernal background against which the events take place.1. The Setting and the Word-ChoiceIn “ The Fall of the house of Usher”, Edgar Allan

15、Poe creates suspense and fear for the reader. He also ties to convince the reader not to let fear overcome him. Poe ties to evoke suspense in the readers mind by using several different scenes and special word-choices. Setting is used to effectively convey ideas, effects, and images in order to esta

16、blish mood, foreshadowing , and characterization. The story begins at dusk on an autumn day in an earlier time, probably the 19th Century. The place is a forbidding mansion in a forlorn countryside. The mansion, covered by a fungus, is encircled by a small lake, called a tarn, that resembles a moat.

17、 A bridge across the tarn provides access to the mansion.Poe carefully makes every word, every phrase, every sentence in the story contribute to the overall effect, horror, accompanied by oppressing morbidity and anxious anticipation of terrifying events. Notice, for example, the tenor of the words

18、in the opening sentence of the story. I have underlined those that help establish the mood and atmosphere. During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly

19、 dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.All-the autumn, sunset, the (dark) clouds, and the wildernessindicates the approaching of the death. It makes the narrator insufferable. This environmental descrip

20、tion make a great basis for developing the following story. Then when he arrived at the place where he can get the whole view of the house, he got this scene: -upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domainupon the bleak wallsupon the vacant eyes-like windowsupon a few rank sed

21、gesand upon a few white trunks of decayed tress. I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gaze down, upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly treestems, and vacant and eyelike windows. Then

22、 when he look up the mansion again, he got a kind of illusion: the whole mansion there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity-an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of the heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the sil

23、ent tarna pestilent and mystic vapour, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued. In my opinion, it is enough to scare me, because the scenes are vivid, so that I am almost personally on the scene and experience it. Besides, at the end of the story it was a horrible night, he was driven t

24、o be crazy. His room was fearful. And he was afraid of something, so he had to endeavoured to believe that much , if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the roomof the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a risi

25、ng tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkenedI know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted meto certain low an

26、d indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. All these scenes were seen by the narrator and experience. He was a kind of media that exploring the horror. Combined with his psychological change, we also be the one the house and being scary. 2.

27、 The horror atmosphere from three main characters：the narrator, Usher and Madeline1) The narrator The narrator was an unnamed character, and a friend of Usher from his boyhood but he did not understand Usher so much. He only know that Usher family are a respected noble family and Usher has a sister

28、with illness all the time. They havent connected each other for a long time. But he came to the Ushers house, because Usher sent him a letter with an ill information and invited him to accompany with. Therefore, he was the sole person who saw how everything happened. What he saw and heard was the ma

29、in plotting of the story, including everything happened with the twin sister and brother. He was the only clearheaded and rational person in the house. As the third point of view, it makes us believe that everything he said that happened in the house was real, because he was not only saw it but also

30、 experienced it. But actually if you think while reading, you can get the arguments.He tried to analyze Ushers psychology and actions, for he did not believe it inherited from generations to generations just as Ushers explanations. But some time later he was infected and became fearful when he was w

31、ith Usher. He tried to control his fear when he continued to narrate the plot.2) Usher Just as we have mentioned, he got mental illness. With narrators description from him: an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curv

32、e; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations.He had an habitual trepidation -an excessive nervous agitation. He told the his friend that he was going to die. He did not tell much about his sister. When he told the narrator she died, in fact, she d

33、id not and he knew it, but he put her in a coffin in the cellar. Seven or eight days later, before she came out from the coffin, he acted weird. he felt her because they were twins. It seems he knew everything and predicted it exactly. He murmured before she appeared at the door: 3). MadelineShe was

34、 a minor role in this novel. There is no many words for her, even when she passed by from the narrator. From her appearance, the narrator had this sentence: a striking similitude between the brother and sister. Just because she was mysterious, the plot develop to the climax, especially before she ca

35、me out from the coffin. Besides, at the end of the novel, she appeared with the image: There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. . For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold, then, with

36、 a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies. 3. Main ThemeThe central theme of The Fall of the House of Usher is terror that arises from the complexity and multiplicity of forces that shape human destiny. Dreadful, horrifying

37、 events result not from a single, uncomplicated circumstance but from a collision and intermingling of manifold, complex circumstances. The theme of evil. Evil has been at work in the House of Usher for generations, befouling the residents of the mansion. Roderick Ushers illness is a constitutional

38、and family evil . . . one for which he despaired to find a remedy, the narrator reports. Usher himself later refers to this evil in Stanza V of The Haunted Palace, a ballad he sings to the accompaniment of his guitar music The theme of isolation. Roderick and Madeline Usher seal themselves inside th

39、eir mansion, cutting themselves off from friends, ideas, progress. They have become musty and mildewed, sick unto their souls for lack of contact with the outside world. The theme of madness.Roger and Madeline suffer from mental illness characterized by anxiety, depression, and other symptoms. Catalepsy, a symptom of Madelines illness, is a condition that causes muscle rigidity and temporary loss of consciousness and feeling for several minutes, several hours, and, in some cases, more than a day. Generally, it is not an illness in itself but a symptom of an illness.The theme of myst