The Fall of the House of Usher
Storyboard Text
- Diction
- “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day...” (1) 
- Imagery
- "my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.” (48) 
- Personification
- "I looked upon the scene before me—... upon the vacant eyelike windows-…"(1) 
- This contributes to the advancement of the plot by setting up the atmosphere to ease the reader into what is happening next in the plot.
- Foreshadow
- The collapse of the house into the tarn then symbolizes the story's resolution as the Usher family is no more, adding to a potential theme of death. 
- Irony
- "and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady" (2) 
- The personification assigns the house of Usher a powerful and evil presence. It helps show a theme of the supernatural and madness. 
- Symbolism
- Poe foreshadows the house crumbling or falling apart by illustrating how unstable the house is. AKA, foreshadowing a major plot point
- "and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones"(5) 
- The narrator is summoned to cheer up Usher. The longer the narrator stays with Usher, the more depressed and fretful he becomes which shows an advancement in the plot the more depressed he becomes.
- A small crack was found in the house, and it foreshadows and symbolizes the breaking apart of the family and the house. 
- “Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.” (5) 
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