The "ancient metaphor" that one can find is that of Roderick Usher and the later being the Usher house. With some close reading of the story, one can see how these two unlike objects mirror each other. To commence an analysis of the different examples found in the story, one must get some brief some brief background information. Roderick Usher was excessively reserved during his childhood and there after. Roderick was the product of inbreeding which had caused him to lead a rather unhealthy life.
How does James use the prologue to prepare the reader for the events of the novel? In ‘The Turn of the Screw’ prologue, Henry James presents to the reader a scene set for a gothic novel. Though, the novel is a ghost story, we sometimes forget that it is a ghost story and begin to believe what happens in it, he achieves this by using a narrative technique which makes the novel interesting as well as very convincing. He uses the frame narrative structure, the first person point of view and the flash back technique. However, upon further reading, the reader may begin to wonder about the narrator’s reliability.
The setting is very important in the elaboration of this specific fictional text. The time and space we are dealing with are much relevant for creating the perfect background for a heroine like Jane to live in. Culturally speaking, Gothic novels were in evidence at the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It involved a lot of stereotypes, fantastic elements, and melodrama. Yet, although some critics define Jane Eyre as a Gothic piece of literature, it is true that it ruptured several aspects to create something quite new, including characterization points that will be discussed further.
As the initial room the narrator finds himself in is not described in great detail, much emphasis is put on the Room itself. The description of the interior of the Red Room uses the conventions of a typical Victorian room that could be used in a ghost story. Firstly, there are many 'black corners' that create a feeling of mystery. There are 'sconces' and a 'mantelshelf', that often feature in stories of this genre. The narrator is the main character in 'The Red Room'.
The Fall of The House of Usher The first sentence of the story places the narrator in what seems to be a supernatural environment starting off with describing the surroundings of the story that is being told. This sets up the tone and mood in which the rest of the story is set in right away we understand that the narrator has been placed in a gloomy environment, which in consequence leads us to understand that he has been isolated from the world around him only to be placed in unfamiliar circumstances. He then proceeds to describe the mansion in front of him which he then seems to attribute a personality too and describes it as if it were a living person for he uses words such as soul, and even goes as far as to say that the windows of the house look like eyes. We right away understand that the house is in poor condition and while its grandeur seems to be present it has been withered away over the years, which are synonymous with the fall of the family who lived inside it. Once the narrator is inside the house we are introduced to Roderick Usher, who is the narrator’s childhood friend but once again he is set up to be a complete mystery even though we are informed right away that something isn’t completely right about him.
This plot structure uniquely allows Shelley to frame the story, add depth to it, and allow readers to see and appreciate the strong similarities between the three narrators. By constructing the story in this fashion, Shelley is ultimately able to give purpose to this unusual method of writing and create an original and intriguing plotline. Shelley’s interesting method of framing the story, while at first seems awkward and unnecessary, eventually develops into a recognizable and admirable framing of the story, putting events in a more presentable order and allowing for much greater suspense and foreshadowing. By starting the novel from the perspective of Walton, Shelley allows Victor’s story to be told in the form of that, a story, where such a style would usually seem an odd way to start a book. It also presents the opportunity to foreshadow future events and build suspense, both of which are important aspects of popular literature in the time that the novel was written.
Title: Make it Clever Edgar Allen Poe wrote a short story called “The House of Usher.” In this short gothic tale there are three main themes that really stood out to me: friendship, incest in the 1800’s, The first theme is Friendship; it is a very important theme that was seen in the beginning of the story. The narrator drops everything in order to answer his friend Roderick’s message to come and help cheer him up. He has a foreboding feeling as he approaches the house which is in a disheveled state, even the walls were starting to crack The next theme is morality. The Roderick twins and the house are symbolically connected by their families’ history of living in the house. The house's state of disrepair is a symbol for the moral, physical, and mental state of Roderick and his sister.
Tatum Scalf AP English January 11th, 2015 “The Masque of the Read Death” 1. In the first paragraph Poe makes you visualize what's going on. The way he described it, “profuse bleeding at the pores”, was almost scary in a way. 2. Poe want’s you to be able to visualize Prospero’s hall in your mind.
Tracy K McGraw Dr. Michael Lewis English 1102 10 February 2014 Analysis of “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury Many authors use a variety of richly developed literary techniques to evoke emotion, and connect with the audience. The purpose of this is to increase the reader's interest in the story and keep his or her attention. A literary device used by many authors is symbolism or, more distinctly, personification. Personification helps the author to establish mood and to build imagery in a piece of writing. In Ray Bradbury's poem, “There Will Come Soft Rains” personification is used to connect the reader with nonhuman or inanimate objects that are being described in the piece.
“The shingled pattern that seems to cease against your box’s rim continues right on in the piece that’s underground with him.”(415) The irony in this is that the husband obtained the exact wood that was made of his coffin down to every single detail for her sewing box. There was more to this than being resourceful. “And while I worked it made me think of timber’s varied doom: One inch where people eat and drink, the next inch in a tomb.” It’s almost as if the husband is hinting that he already knows. The story takes a turn as the husband starts to acknowledge the presence of the wife’s reaction, “But why do you look so white, my dear, and turn aside your face? You knew not that good lad, I fear, though he came from your native place?”(415) By doing so he told her one thing, “Don’t dare, despise my intellect, mere accidental things of that sort never have effect on my imaginings.” With a lot of the detail that was in this sentence really started to understand that there was more to the story.