"The Fall of the House of Usher"

Paper Summary:

The paper asserts that gothic refers to the encounter with the mysterious and the unknown. The paper explains that the unknown in gothic fiction refers to something that is beyond the normal and rational. The paper illustrates how "The Fall of the House of Usher" presents the conventional themes and motifs of the gothic romance genre. There is the haunted house, the depressing location, the horrors, madness and disease and development of a monstrous bizarre union in destruction and decay. However, the paper concludes that at the heart of the gothic genre, lay the movement towards an expression of the unknown and the mysterious, which lies beyond our comprehension.

Outline:
Introduction and Thesis Statement
The House of Usher and the Unknown
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"The works of Edgar Allan Poe were not the first literature to be described as gothic. Poe has as his antecedents many other works that contain the gothic style and content. His work is often described as "A descent from such British milestones in literary Gothicism as Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), William Beckford's Vathek (1786), W. H. Ireland's The Abbess (1798), or Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) is evident in Poe's writings." (Fisher 72)"
"The gothic in art and literature is defined and described in numerous ways and with a great degree of controversy and disagreement. There are many critics who suggest that there can be no one definitive view of this genre."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Edgar Allan Poe: "The Fall of the House of Usher". 2000. 8 March, 2006. http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/PoeFall.htm
• Fisher, Benjamin F. "Poe and the Gothic Tradition." The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 72-91.
• Gamer, Michael. Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception, and Canon Formation. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Poe, Edgar Allan. Thirty-Two Stories. Ed. Stuart Levine and Susan F. Levine. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2000. Questia. 12 Mar. 2006 <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97625530>.
• Thompson, G. R. Poe's Fiction: Romantic Irony in the Gothic Tales. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1973.

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• Comparison Essay # 92248 : "Paradise Lost" and "The Fall of the House of Usher"

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