“The Fall of the House of Usher” Edgar Allan Poe used fear to attract his readers into his gothic world. Poe realized that fear intrigues as well as frightens, and sew it as a perfect motif for many of his stories, particularly The Fall of the House of Usher. Poe emphasized the mysterious, desolate, and gloomy surroundings throughout the story to set up the fear that got the reader involved. Then he extended the fear to the characters in order to reveal the importance of facing and overcoming fear. Poe suggested in the story that the denial of fears can lead to madness and insanity. This has clearly shown through the weakening of Roderick Usher’s mind and the resulting impact on the narrator of the story.In the beginning of the story, Poe used images and descriptions to create a gothic picture of the Usher mansion and to set up a sense of fear and terror. The narrator looked “upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges” and was disturbed. Once he saw these depressing characteristics of the house, he had an idea as to what he would find inside. Upon entering the dark and dismal house, the narrator was joined with Roderick Usher. Shocked by the appearance of his companion from early childhood, the narrator explained, “I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher!” Through conversation with his childhood friend, the narrator finally discovered the true source of Roderick’s illness and sickly appearance. Usher said, “I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm fear.” Roderick was overwhelmed by the fear he was experiencing, and it affected every aspect of his li...
