Incubus, phantasmagoric, cataleptical and miasma. Would one say that these were difficult words to understand? Well, maybe if they were a high school student. Edgar Allen Poe uses strong advanced words for his literature such as The Fall Of The House Of Usher. Students, now in the 21st century are becoming more lazy with their studies which is now making old advanced stories such as this one, a more bigger challenge. Edgar Allen Poe uses tough vocabulary and sentence structure to reinforce the theme by keeping the mood grotesque and by bringing an imagination or hallucinations to the theme. .
Romanticism is all about grotesque, disturbing, and gothic literature. The Fall Of The House OF Usher shows these characteristics throughout the story of a man visiting an old mentally ill friend. For example, "An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm." (304) In this quote, Poe uses these words and sentence structure to give an eerie feeling to this part of the story. In short, by using these words, it gives you a better description of how this visitor is feeling as he is about to encounter a ghostly figure.
Secondly, Edgar Allen Poe's story's theme was basically about dreams and hallucinations, which brings it to the next point. The Fall Of The House Of Usher is consist of many imaginations, which Edgar Allen Poe used in his idea to make this a fearful story. For example, "These appearances, which bewilder you . Are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon-or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn." (305) .
Edgar Allen Poe shows an example of his theme in this quote.