The Fall of the House of Usher

-Poe: very structured in his writing
-unity of effect: single overall feeling
-Poe wrote to explore the strange and fantastic, convey psychological terror through carefully chosen details and events.
-Mood: feeling or atmosphere through writers words.

The narrator goes to the house of Usher to visit an old friend. It is a big house and only the friend and his sister live there. They are the last of the Ushers and are both quite sick. The house seems to be dying with the family. Roderick gets nervous about everything and his senses are all extreme. He can't listen to anything but string interments, or eat anything but bland foods. His sister has spells where she looks like she is dead. She will go into a coma like stage and nobody really knows if she is alive or dead. While the friend is visiting Roderick buries his sister alive on purpose. He wants the family to be gone and everything to be destroyed. The friend just thinks she died suddenly. He wants to end their suffering. Roderick hears her scratching at the coffin and screaming. On night there is a storm and the friend reads a book to Roderick because he is going crazy. Everything he reads in the book happens in real life. The sister escapes and comes up bloody and scary looking. Roderick screams and she falls on him and it kills him. The friend goes running out of the house and is able to escape before the house crumbles into the ground and goes into the swamp in was near.