Poeffect
Essay written by Henry George When reviewing Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales, Edgar Allen Poe pronounced that the short story, if skillfully written, should deliver a single preconceived effect- an effect upon which incidents be fashioned to accommodate that effect. Edgar Allen Poe was indeed a skillful writer. His short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a flawless example of a story in which all elements contribute to the delivery of a single emotional effect. Poe accomplishes this by achieving a perfect tone, developing suspense and unifying stylistic elements thereby meeting his own criteria. In his pronouncement Poe also wrote that "In the whole composition there should be no word written, of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design." Thus, in "The Fall of the House of Usher" Poe creates a perfect tone critical to the delivery of his preconceived effect. The senses of "insufferable gloom," "utter depression of soul" and " sinking, sickening of the heart" which pervade the narrator's spirit immediately establish the tone. The narrator's description of the
Through the exposure to these increasingly realistic and believable sounds, Poe transposes his audience into the correct mindset for the delivery of his single emotional effect. evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. Poe's use of parallel and balanced sentences also create consistent rhythm which aid in the maintenance of tone and suspense. Poe is able to skillfully structure long involved sentences that contain several ideas to fit his purpose of creating confusion and mystery. Other effects such as humor, morality and logic are also deliberately omitted. The regular use or repetition of the words "dark," "gloomy" and "oppressive" in some form serves function to further define and emphasize a perfect tone. Long-long-long-many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it" and "Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Shows how Poe uses these techniques to enhance rhythm and create emphasis thus adding to the unity of the story. This is accomplished through the rising level of anticipation he breeds in the reader with the anticipation the narrator feels as he reads "The Mad Twist. Along with devising a perfect tone, Edgar Allen Poe builds a high degree of suspense in order to bring about his desired effect. The parallelism that exists between the poem the "The Haunted Palace" and what is occurring in the House of Usher achieves a great deal of unity as it helps to connect the events to come by foreshadowing an imminent, terrible and rapid deterioration of the House of the Usher's. The imagery created by the descriptive details of "the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher" and the "blood upon her white robes. Through directing all elements of his style to one common cause, Poe creates a unified story, optimal of achieving a single emotional effect. The expression of the narrator's "feeling of wild amazement" and his claim that he "did actually hear a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted and most unusual screaming or grating sound" exemplifies the mix of thought and numerous descriptions that all appear in one sentence.
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Acceptance Essays
