In "The Fall of The House of Usher," Edgar Allan Poe uses the house as a paradox to allude and foreshadow the fall of the Usher family. Poe used this analogy throughout the novel, giving the house personification, and bringing this bleak gothic story to life. Throughout the story, the narrator slowly goes insane, leaving it up to the reader to decide whether the delusive tale is from the author or Usher going crazy.

The imagery of the skull-like house that peers at the Narrator while he drives up sets the gothic tone, "There was iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime." (pg. 1) One of the best elements given in this story was its use of imagery to "paint the picture," and really set a mood of anxiety...