The Fall of the House of Usher (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)
At a glance:
- Author: Edgar Allan Poe
- First Published: 1839
- Type of Work: Short fiction
- Type of Plot: Gothic
- Time of Work: Nineteenth century
- 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
Places Discussed
House of Usher. Home of the madman Roderick Usher and his twin sister Madeline. Located in an unspecified place, the house and its bleak surroundings are primarily described in terms of the impressions they create in the narrator’s mind. He is unnerved by the building itself, with its “vacant eye- like windows,” but he takes worse fright from its image reflected in the “black and lurid tarn” which lurks around and beneath it. The house is connected to the surrounding land by a narrow causeway, but the link is tenuous and precarious. The atmosphere...
[The entire page is 786 words long]
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