The Fall of the House of Usher (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Edgar Allan Poe
- First Published: 1839
- Type of Work: Short story
- Genres: Short fiction, Gothic fiction, Horror literature
- Subjects: Love or romance, Supernatural, Nineteenth century, Friendship, Incest, Mental illness, Fear, Sisters, Death or dying, Good and evil, Storms, Sick persons, Houses, mansions, or manors
- Locales: Earth
“The Fall of the House of Usher” is Poe's best-known and most admired story, and rightfully so: It expertly combines in a powerful and economical way all of his most obsessive themes, and it brilliantly reflects his aesthetic theory that all the elements of a literary work must contribute to the single unified effect or pattern of the work itself. The central mystery on which the thematic structure of the story depends is the nature of Roderick Usher's illness. Although its symptoms consist of an extreme sensitivity to all sensory stimuli and a powerful unmotivated fear, nowhere...
[The entire page is 814 words long]
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