Literature Creation Methods of Poes Gothic Tales

Literature Creation Methods of Poe’s Gothic Tales

——Review of The Fall of the House of Usher

英81 高云君 2008012742

As one of the most famous works by Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher is the a masterpiece in American gothic literature. The prose is full with of elements and details which are unsettling and macabre. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Poe’s gothic novels have always been my readings before bed since I was younga child. In my childhood, following the unnamed narrator and walking towards that old and creepy house, I was immersed in the horrible storyline and experience the fantastic feeling of nightmare. Today when I look back on this literature work, I get some deeper understanding and .

Ⅰ. Hellish environment setting ：Use of double space

The whole environment and different scenes in the story are so hellish that the reader feels a kind of inexplicable asphyxia. I summarize some typical elements Poe uses to build a gothic atmosphere.

Day: a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn.

Location: a singularly dreary tract of country.

House and surrounding: 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 upon a few white trunks of decayed trees. The precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn.

If that can be called the exterior space, then the internal space inside the house of Usher is more somber.

Decoration in the house:  The Gothic archway of the hall. The carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies.

People in the house: A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence. I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation...