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The Fall of the House of Usher


            In the short story The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe utilizes a variety of methods to manipulate not only the reader's emotions but also their mind by making what people dreaded and detested most come to life while at the same time retaining his readers by laying down a trap that lures and keeps them in and the only way out is to finish reading. His writing is especially successful due to the sadistic realism of the macabre style.
             The opening of the story establishes an opposition amid the narrator's experience of what has the potential to be a supernatural force and his elucidation of the events as understandable by obtuse psychological law or merely his nerves. The narrator hesitates between the natural and supernatural even though it is clear that he has a preference for the natural explanation. Because the narrator has this dilemma the reader also experiences it in addition to being torn by the two different explanations and eventually enters into a third which is a suspension between the two. The continuation of the tale purely amplifies the split which at the end is further fueled by the denial of closure. These combinations of factors add to the escalating tension and the choice between a natural and supernatural explanation of events. An unsettling tone is successful conveyed by the conscious disorientation of the reader. .
             By beginning with the description of the physically and psychologically oppressing weather through means of noise, careful word choice, and rhythm the narrator establishes an intense despondency. Further along, the portrayal of the dilapidated house only affirms the melancholy. Once the atmosphere of the story is properly set to exude only obscurity it is then that the reader becomes fully ensnared, unable to vary their gaze. As the overwhelming gloom becomes clearer to the narrator he insists that a natural explanation must exist. He even goes so far as to attempt to change his outlook although that produces "a shudder even more thrilling than before" (45).


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