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
The other quintessential-features of gothic tale that I found is terror. It deals with the theme of the story. There are symbols of terror show in some part of the story.
It can be seen in the quotations below:
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. I shall perish, said he, I must
perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the
future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial,
incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of
danger, except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved-in this pitiable condition--I feel that
the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle
with the grim phantasm, FEAR. Poe, 1839: 4
His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber
with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible,
a more ghastly hue--but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness
of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
characterized his utterance. Poe, 1839: 10
From the quotations above it’s easily to identify the terror as the major theme of the story, however part of the terror of the story is its ambiguity. The
terror arisen from the complexity and multiplicity of forces that shape human destiny. In the last story, Poe written that Madeline returned and she fall upon
Usher. During the fall, he died. It shows that the return of Madeline is part of terror of death toward Usher. The characters behavior and the theme in the story
help me to understand clearly about terror as the quintessential-feature that exists in the story. The other intrinsic elements also support the mood of terror in the
story.
4.2.5 Madness