Gothic Elements Of Gothic Literature

Gothic literature is surrounded by suspenseful elements that go together to create a sense of anxiety, which is exactly what Poe and Faulkner did with their stories. In “A rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the story is based off the events that surrounds Emily Grierson and her strange life, which bounces from the time of her death to different time events in her life to create a wicked plot line. “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe is even more eery in the way the story is created. The story line follows the sole remaining members of the Usher family that have already-existing weird qualities such as the fact that both have strange diseases (Roderick suffers Acuteness of the senses and Madeline suffers from Catalepsy) that

Gothic-horror -to be specific- fits the genre of the story perfectly and with such a clear example, it sets the standard for all gothic-inspired authors that followed Poe. The reason that the story would eventually grow to be such an excellent example to gothic literature is that it contains obvious signs of gothic characteristics such as betrayal, castles, death, psychologically ill characters etc. For example, in the introduction of the story, the narrator starts off by describing the desperate and gloomy looking run down castle that belongs to the Ushers. Then as the reader finds out that Madeline would eventually be buried alive when she was mistakenly presumed dead, the plot becomes even more intense. Besides the creepy and disturbing description that the narrator gives of the house or the environment such as the winds, the creepiest and most insane part of the story was the part when Madeline frantically climbs out of her coffin; “covered in blood and obviously struggling.” As Poe describes how she violently falls onto Roderick who then dies from a panic attack, the intent was to strike fear through the reader. If anything, the scene where the narrator escapes the house before it simply blows up from a lightning strike suggests that Poe was going through some stuff while writing this