The unity effect in Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Literature grade: 17 University of Kassel course: Hauptseminar Antebellum in American Short Fiction language: English abstract: A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale ... there should be no word written of which the tendency direct or indirect is not to the one pre-established design... Edgar Allan Poe who was praised as given the title of one of the greatest journalistic critic of his time by literary critics stressed unity totality and prescribed design. And The Fall of the House of Usher is proved to be a very successful story to demonstrate Poe's adherence of his own principle of constructiveness and his structural art. The intention of this research paper is therefore to examine how Poe emphasized unity of effect in theory and how it is fulfilled in practice especially in one of his best-known stories. In a close reading of Usher the author is above all impressed by the melancholic tone that Poe obviously intends to raise at the very beginning of this story. For this reason how Poe implements his technique by making tone obedient to the unity of effect will be first of all examined in this paper. Obviously tone should be identified with atmosphere. According to Poe unity of setting is another important requirement for achieving the unity of effect in prose writing which will be studied in the second section.If as critics maintain characters are skilfully adapted to the circumstances which surround them are a general device in Poe's tales it is in Usher in particular. The third section intends to show how characters are made to fit into the desolate house and dreary environment to achieve the desired effect in this tale. Finally with the ideal arrangement of effective tone setting characters Poe gains his battlefield to carry out unity of effect in plot in Usher. In order to attain the unity of plot in literary writing Poe str