The Fall of the House of Usher

Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a short story which makes the reader feel fear, depression and guilt from the very first page and up to the final scene.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Fall of the House of Usher specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Having read the story up to the end, it seems that Usher and his sister are the most depressive people in the house and a simple guest, Usher’s friend who arrived becomes deeply depressed too because of the general conditions and mood in the house. However, looking at the situation from another angle, it is possible to see that depressed and gloomy atmosphere in the house is much exaggerated because of the pessimistic vision of life by the narrator personally. Therefore, having read a story attentively, it is possible to doubt the events which took place there and try to consider the situation from another point of view. The Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a story about Usher and his family. The house is depicted as the symbol of the atmosphere and relations in the family. From the very beginning the house is shown as the place that gives â€Å"a sense of insufferable gloom† and â€Å"natural images of the desolate or terrible† (Poe, 2000, p. 1264). The narrator sees â€Å"the blank walls†¦ with an utter depression of soul†¦ after-dream of the reveler upon opium† (Poe, 2000, p. 1264). Describing the house, the protagonist sees â€Å"iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart†, and â€Å"barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn† (Poe, 2000, p. 1265).Advertising Looking for essay on american literature? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More All these descriptions create the gloomy mood before the reader gets acquainted with those who live in the house. Therefore, seeing the health problems the inhabitants of the house have, the reader takes it for granted that the atmosphere in the house is depressive. Reading of the books, listening to the music and even watching the paintings, in a word, everything the inhabitants of the house do puts the reader to consider the whole situation as depressive because of Usher and his sister. However, if one takes a closer reading and considers the first lines of the story, everything may be changed. â€Å"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on† (Poe, 2000, p. 1264) is the first part from the Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. Have not seen the house, have not ex perienced the doom atmosphere there, the protagonist is already depressed. Therefore, this scene makes a reader doubt the events which took place in the story. Hinzpeter (2012) makes an offer that â€Å"the first-person-narrator may have suffered from depression or some other sort of causeless melancholy from the very beginning and was therefore easily influenced by the gothic setting† (p. 10). So, it may be concluded that the gothic setting makes the narrator discuss simple life of people who do not communicate with the outside world due to their diseases as a depressive and criminal. The events which happened in the story may be an imagination of the narrator.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on The Fall of the House of Usher specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More However, one detail makes the reader doubt this statement, the â€Å"perceptible fissure† which is not too big at the beginning, and then the fi ssures are too big at the end and they cause the house fall. Reference List Hinzpeter, K. (2012). Unreliable Narration in Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ – The Narrative Creation of Horror. New York: GRIN Verlag. Poe, E. (2000). The fall of the house of Usher. In R. Bausch R.V. Cassill (Eds.), The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (pp. 1264-1277). New York: W. W. Norton. This essay on The Fall of the House of Usher was written and submitted by user Melody Gentry to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Definition, Examples of the Rhetorical Term Epanalepsis

Definition, Examples of the Rhetorical Term Epanalepsis (1) Epanalepsis is a rhetorical term for the repetition of a word or phrase at regular intervals: a refrain. Adjective: epanaleptic. (2) More specifically, epanalepsis may refer to repetition at the end of a clause or sentence of the word or phrase with which it began, as in Next time  there wont be a  next time (Phil Leotardo in  The Sopranos). In this sense, epanalepsis is a combination of anaphora and epistrophe. Also known as inclusio. EtymologyFrom the Greek, resumption, repetition Pronunciation e-pa-na-LEP-sis Examples Always Low Prices. Always. (Walmart slogan)Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice. (The Bible, Phil. 4.4)In the run-up to Christmas, we will publicly disembowel anyone heard using the phrase in the run-up to Christmas. (Michael Bywater, The Chronicles of Bargepole, Jonathan Cape, 1992)Music I heard with you was more than music,And bread I broke with you was more than bread. (Conrad Aiken, Bread and Music, 1914)He is noticeable for nothing in the world except for the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing.† (Edgar Allan Poe, The Literati of New York City. Godeys Ladys Book, Sep. 1846)Say over again, and yet once over again,That thou dost love me . . .. (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese)â€Å"Imagine me, an old gentleman, a distinguished author, gliding rapidly on my back, in the wake of my outstretched dead feet, first through that gap in the granite, then over a pinewood, then along misty water meadows, and then simply between mar ges of mist, on and on, imagine that sight!† (Vladimir Nabokov, Look at the Harlequins! McGraw Hill, 1974) Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,Possessed by what we now no more possessed. (Robert Frost, The Gift Outright)They went home and told their wives,that never once in all their lives,had they known a girl like me,But . . . They went home. (Maya Angelou, They Went Home)The man who did the waking buys the man who was sleeping a drink; the man who was sleeping drinks it while listening to a proposition from the man who did the waking. (Jack Sparrow, The Pirates of the Caribbean)We know nothing of one another, nothing. Smiley mused. However closely we live together, at whatever time of day or night we sound the deepest thoughts in one another, we know nothing. (John le Carrà ©, Call for the Dead, 1961) Epanalepsis in Julius Caesar Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe. (Brutus in Act III, scene two of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare)By repeating hear and believe at both the beginning and end of successive lines, Brutus emphasizes to the crowd that these are the two main things he desires: for the crowd to hear him and, more significantly, to believe what he is about to say regarding the assassination of Julius Caesar. Epanalepsis in Little Dorritt Mr. Tite Barnacle was a buttoned-up man, and consequently a weighty one. All buttoned-up men are weighty. All buttoned-up men are believed in. Whether or no the reserved and never-exercised power of unbuttoning, fascinates mankind; whether or no wisdom is supposed to condense and augment when buttoned up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned; it is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the buttoned-up man. Mr. Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half his current value, unless his coat had been always buttoned-up to his white cravat. (Charles Dickens, Little Dorritt, 1855-1857) Epanalepsis in James Joyces Ulysses Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at smiling noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit clusters. And the hands of a bride and bridegroom, noble to noble, were impalmed by Don John Conmee. (James Joyces, Chapter 10 of Ulysses, 1922) Notes on Epanalepsis in Prose Epanalepsis is rare in prose, probably because when the emotional situation arises that can make such a scheme appropriate, poetry seems to be the only form that can adequately express the emotion. (Edward P.J. Corbett and Robert J. Connors, Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, 1999)When epanalepsis is used in prose, it often creates sentences that stand alone as aphorisms: Nothing can be created out of nothing (Lucretius). Men of few words are the best men (Henry IV 3.2). (Arthur Quinn and Lyon Rathbun, Epanalepsis. Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and Composition, ed. by Theresa Enos. Taylor Francis, 1996)The fourth-century grammarian and rhetorician Tiberius lists epanalepsis as a rhetorical figure, but at the conclusion of his explanation uses the term analepsis instead: Epanalepsis is when the same word is placed twice in the same clause or in the same sentence, with the same context. ... Public speakers use analepsis at the beginning, in the same way as palillogia, but Homer used it also at the end. (Joachim Burmeister, Musical Poetics, trans. by Benito V. Rivera. Yale Univ. Press, 1993)