the domain--upon the bleak walls--upon the vacant eye-like windows--upon a few rank sedges--and
upon a few white trunks of decayed trees --with an
utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream
of the reveller upon opium--the bitter lapse into everyday life-the hideous dropping off of the reveller
upon opium--the bitter lapse into everyday life--the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an 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
. Poe, 1839: 1
From the quotation above it can be seen that instead of standard narrative markers of place and time Poe uses traditional Gothic elements such as inclement
weather and a dreary landscape. We are alone with the narrator in this haunted space, and neither we nor the narrator know why.
The setting of the story shows the image of ―Dreary Landscape‖ as the quintessential- feature of gothic tale clearly.
4.2.3 Mysterious Sickness
The mysterious sickness is the other quintessential-features of gothic tale that I found. The mysterious sickness of Madeline made she has buried. In fact, I am not
sure that Madeline died actually. I found that in the story happened a premature burial. It is available in the quotations:
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians
. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient
affections of a partially cataleptically character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up
against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening
of my arrival at the house, she succumbed as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation to the
prostrating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably
be the last I should obtain --that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more. Poe, 1839: 5
Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet
unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister
now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from
which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature
had always existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead--for we could not regard her
unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth
, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character,
the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that
suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid,
and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toll, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper
portion of the house. Poe, 1839: 10
The narrator tries to explain through the quotations above that Madeline getting a mysterious sick and supposed to be died. But the narrator does not sure
that Madeline absolutely died. He thinks that there was happen a premature burial. He thinks that Madeline in long sleeping because of a mysterious sickness.
This quintessential-feature of gothic tale shows clearly through the main characters behavior. It can be seen through the Madeline behavior. It also can be
seen from the dialogue between Usher and the narrator. I also conclude that there is mysterious sickness features in the story from the narration of the narrator in
the story. Actually, the theme, plot, point of view, setting, even style and tone do not help me to find this quintessential-features.
4.2.4 Terror
