Edgar Allan Poe wrote with a particular reasoning as to how all the elements of his stories came together to achieve a main purpose. Poe expressed that a story needed to be fabricated to execute a solitary effect. Poe's short story "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a prime example of his doctrine. The description of the House of Usher and Usher's painting, the entombment of Madeline Usher, the storms and other incidents that occurred in the story, and the appearance of Madeline at the close of the tale all attributed to the story's overall growing sense of terror.
First, the description of the House of Usher contributes to the sensation of terror throughout the story. The Narrator spoke of how the mansion had "an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn - a pestilent and mystic vapour, dull, sluggish, faintly discernable, and leaden - hued." Every word in that selection combined to add a growing image of terror. As the mansion had no connection with heaven it must then have similarities toward death and decay. The "silent tarn" gives off a conception of an eerie setting fogged by the Narrator's thoughts of the mansion.
To continue, the description of Usher's painting proceeds to supplement the story with dismay. Usher's painting is depicted as "a small picture of an immensely long and rectangular vault with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device." That representation foreshadows the vault in which Madeline Usher is prematurely entombed. The image thus foresees Madeline's death. The Narrator went on to say, "No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, no torch yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate spendour." The description of Usher's painting gives off an attitude of disgust in the thought of being trapped in the vault, a feeling of pure claustrophobia attacks the reader's senses.
