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Edgar Allan PoeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Though it is unusual for an inanimate object to operate as a character in fiction, the House of Usher is the story’s antagonist. It is the antagonist because it is the entity that is stopping the protagonist from achieving his goal of saving Usher from his illness. Themes of the sentience of non-sentient beings, supernatural forces, and horror tropes that upend the laws of nature are built up, making the house an entity that exerts an evil will on its inhabitants.
Houses are a key feature of the Gothic literary genre. Houses in Gothic literature are old and almost always in a state of decay. They have housed generations of the same family and have been the site of countless sins, intrigues, and aberrations. Houses in Gothic literature are frequently haunted, and the hauntings are often the residue of memory and shame rather than supernatural phenomena.
In Gothic literature, the house or mansion need not be “Gothic” in the strictly architectural sense. Though the houses at the center of Gothic novels are often castles, it is more important that they evoke themes of moral, structural, and aesthetic corruption than that they contain flying buttresses and ribbed vaults.
By Edgar Allan Poe
A Dream Within a Dream
A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allan Poe
Annabel Lee
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe
Berenice
Berenice
Edgar Allan Poe
Hop-Frog
Hop-Frog
Edgar Allan Poe
Ligeia
Ligeia
Edgar Allan Poe
Tamerlane
Tamerlane
Edgar Allan Poe
The Black Cat
The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe
The Cask of Amontillado
The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe
The Conqueror Worm
The Conqueror Worm
Edgar Allan Poe
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
Edgar Allan Poe
The Gold Bug
The Gold Bug
Edgar Allan Poe
The Haunted Palace
The Haunted Palace
Edgar Allan Poe
The Imp of the Perverse
The Imp of the Perverse
Edgar Allan Poe
The Lake
The Lake
Edgar Allan Poe
The Man of the Crowd
The Man of the Crowd
Edgar Allan Poe
The Masque of the Red Death
The Masque of the Red Death
Edgar Allan Poe
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
Edgar Allan Poe
The Oval Portrait
The Oval Portrait
Edgar Allan Poe
The Philosophy of Composition
The Philosophy of Composition
Edgar Allan Poe