The Fall of the House of Usher Natalie Martin Project
Storyboard Text
- Alliteration
- 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 the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.
- Imagery
- I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn3 that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before— upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, and the vacant and eyelike windows.
- Indirect Characterization
- His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupation were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and object-less step.
- (P1, Line 1-6)dull, dark, dreary are examples of alliteration. In his opening line, Poe uses the literary device, alliteration, to give the story a fast pace and add suspense from the start. In addition, his choice of words helps sets the mood for the story.
- Symbolism
- The discolorationof ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior,hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves.
- (P1 , Line 31-35 )Poe uses imagery to evoke readers to make mental images of how the Usher house looks like. His vivid description correlates to the genre, horror.
- Personification
- Sleepcame not near my couch—while the hours waned and waned away.
- (P30, Line 2-5)Poe uses indirect characterization to reveal details about how Rodrick Usher feels after Madeline's "death." It ties into the theme of sibling love.
- Foreshadowing
- it appeared to me that, from somevery remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to myears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, theecho (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking andripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described.
- (P5, Line 4-5) (P8, Line 23-28)The crumbling and deteriorating house symbolizes Rodrick crumbling mental condition, as well as, physical appearance. This means that as Roderick mental health gets worse, so does the house. Hence, when Madeline kills Rodrick at the end of the story, the earth shallows the entirety of the house.
- The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous luster of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
- (P31, Line 3-4)Poe uses the literary device, personification to say that the narrator is wide awake and can't go to sleep. This advances the plot because it creates suspense and builds anxiousness for readers.
- (P39, Line 3-7)Poe uses foreshadowing with the Sir Launcelot reading to build up suspense and to intensify the moment where Madeline shows up alive. By using this, it further advances the plot and confirms the narrative that Madeline might have been put in the tomb alive.
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