Question

When was the "Fall of the House of Usher" written and what was going on at the time it was written?

Answer 1

Edgar Allan Poe written a well known The Fall of the House of Usher short story and it was first published in the Burton's Gentleman's Magazine on September 1839 and in 1840 it was slightly revised. Poe struggled with poverty, alcohol and madness throughout his life. Poe’s reputation continued to grow after his death. His work is still popular and very widely read today. Poe’s talent for writing was evident at an early age and his first published works were collection of poems. SummaryThe five stories in this collection represent different facets of Poe’s writing.

The Fall of the House of Usher was pretty much the epitome of Poe and the gothic american novel in general. The paranoia and almost split personality characteristic of Poe (like in The Tell Tale Heart) that manifests itself in Roderick is what I think gives it the haunting, fearful tone. It seems almost as if Roderick isn't really so sick as much as he expects himself to be sick (given his family history of sickness), therefore giving himself the symptoms, and almost how he expects to fulfill the story of The Mad Trist, therefore burying his sister alive, although he knows she is alive, to create his own self-fulfilling prophecy. The unnamed illness that Roderick suffers from is typical of many Poe works, and adds to the sense of doom pervading the entire work. I like the eeriness of Poe's works, and thought that this story was the best example of Poe's ability to personify emotions and create something simultaneously creepy and genius.