Blog Set 10

The Fall of  the House of Usher

Poe like always started the story in a spooky setting by saying  "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year.” This really does remind me of our typical haunted house that had windows that looked like eyes and a spooky vibe. The character is riding his horse on his way to a friend’s house that sent him a letter about him being sick.  He hasn’t seen his childhood friend in the longest, and when he does, he barley recognizes him. He plans at saying at Usher’s house more weeks. Usher starts to talk about his illness and says it’s a family illness. It heightens all of his senses so that light hurts his eyes, he can only eat bland foods and only wear certain clothes, and most sounds make him miserable. It makes it seem like he is a vampire of some sort. He also tells him that he hasn’t left his house for many years and blames it on the house. Usher also has a twin sister who is the only living relative he has left but she is very sick also.  The whole time the narrator is there, he try’s to get his friend out of his depression. In the process, his sister ends up “dying” and Usher wanted to put her under the mansion because he didn’t want her to be experimented on. After that the Usher started acting weird and the narrator noticed. The narrator reads a story and the sound that happens in the story happens in real life. Madeline appears all bloody and bruised up and she basically tackles her brother down. The narrator runs out of the mansion from fear and watches the house fall apart in half.

 Afterwards

Mary is in her library thinking about the events that led up to her husband’s disappearance.  She didn’t know much about her husband’s work, all she knows is that he worked in a mine. There was a young man who appeared at the house twice that Mary did not know. His name was Robert Elwell and he was Ned’s business partner. Mary finds a letter from Elwell treating Ned about money that he lost. Parvis comes to Mary’s house and shows her a picture of Elwell and tells her about his death. Mary put the puzzle pieces together and realizes that Elwell came to the house as a ghost. She replays the moment where her cousin tells her that there’s ghost but she would not know about them till long afterwards. It is American gothic because he didn't have all the spooky elements like every other scary stores. It only had a house that was claimed to have ghosts. It also had a ghost who kept coming till it got what it wanted. The sense of guilt was in it because Ned knew exactly who that young man was and felt some type of way towards him.
Update: The language of the house of usher being a haunted house was dull, dark, and a soundless day. There were bleak walls and vacant eye-like windows. White trunks of decayed trees and a depression of soul. The haunted palace described how the house used to be before evil corrupted the house. It was said that the house was a beautiful place but it became filled with evil beings which destroyed the house. I think since the house always had one owner it turned evil. The twins kind of broke the tradition because there was two of them. That also lead me to the conclusion that that’s why the house had a crack in the middle. Since there’s two people the house was split into a half. I also thought it was weird how Usher buried her sister as if he knew that she was going to come back to life. Also when he heard all the noises he says “she’s alive” before he even saw her. How did he predict that it was her making all the noise coming out from the coffin? The narrator literally left without helping his “friend” and watched the house split into two with both of them inside.