The Dimensions of Fear: Impacting the Reader in "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "House Taken Over" Anonymous 10th Grade

The devil is in the details! No matter the task, one must pay attention to every aspect of its completion to avoid being swayed by the devil’s tactics of distraction and procrastination. Stories meant to scare have a difficult and all-consuming objective - to influence and immerse the reader with suspense and transformation. Authors writing these nightmarish stories often utilize the literary elements of mood, tone, characterization, and/or symbolism to create an immersive suspense for their readers. While Edgar Allan Poe uses the Gothic tradition to express the inevitable decay of the aristocracy in “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Julio Cortázar expresses the same theme in “House Taken Over” by way of the Magical Realism literary style.

Initially, Poe’s use of Gothic tradition elements share with the reader his dark, and often more pessimistic, perspective of the world. The dramatic descriptions and events included in the short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” utilize tortured characters and recurring symbolism to create a gloomy mood. The first paragraph of “The Fall of the House of Usher” follows the Gothic tradition of creating an unmistakably gloomy mood as Poe includes phrases such as “dull, dark”, “dreary”, “...