In the short story, The Fall of the House of Usher, written by Edgar Allen Poe, the setting, combined with the atmosphere of this wretched old house, is very significant, in that it creates a very depressing mood for the reader, and really influences the emotions for those who read about this horrifying house. Words like “tarn”, “dull”, and “sickening of the heart”, make the reader feel a sense of dread and gloom, and helps set the depressing atmosphere. The mood the setting creates, from just riding up to the house itself, to after the staying in the house for a couple of days, and then witnessing everything that has gone on in the house after being there for so many days, all of the words and the overall atmosphere that Poe uses all tie together to make the reader feel a certain “insufferable gloom” (Poe, 1).
This horrific story starts out by taking place in the season of autumn, which is associated a lot of the time, with death and dying, from the changing of the leaves and also because of all of the trees and plants dying. From the very beginning, the atmosphere from the setting starts out making the reader feel creepy, and feeling that something isn’t quite right, as the narrator explains, “During the whole of a dark, dull, and soundless day in the autumn of the year…” (Poe, 1) The narrator also feels “a sense of insufferable gloom” (Poe, 1), as he sees the house for the first time. From just the first
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glimpse of the house, the atmosphere and setting of this weird and fascinating house make the reader and narrator feel gloomy, as if something evil is in the presence. As the narrator gets closer to the house itself, he explains how it makes him feel as he draws closer, stating, “...with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium” (Poe, 1). The setting of the inside of the house itself, also creates a gloomy atmosphere and mood for the narrator and reader, in...