note particularly the vivid and prophetic image of the house in the tarn (paragraph 1), and the decayed condition of the old building (paragraph 5, fissure).

III. Characterization.

Besides Roderick Usher, few persons are mentioned in the tale: the servants, the guest ("I"), the doctor, the sister. The servants (paragraph 6) are mere figures. The guest is the person by whom the reader lives through this horrible experience; he is any spectator of normal mind — the reader himself. The doctor is introduced merely to account for keeping the body in the house (paragraphs 6, 21). The sister appears only once (paragraph 13) to the "guest" (i. e., to the reader) before her entrance in the hideous climax, and then as a ghostly apparition; she is significant not as a character but as an occasion for the events of the tale.

The real interest centers about Roderick Usher. His disposition is first described in the French couplet with which the tale opens:

His heart is a lute suspended;

As soon as one touches it, it gives forth sound.

His nervous and unbalanced mental condition, the extreme of the delicate sensibility described in the couplet, was the occasion of his friend's visit (paragraph 2). His whole heredity (paragraph 3) tended toward an intellectual and artistic sensitiveness that weakened, rather than strengthened, the body and the character. The young man's person is described (paragraph 8) in such a way as to make him seem uncanny, stress being put on the expression rather than on the features themselves. The analysis of his mind is given in paragraphs 9-20. Observe the condition of his nerves, the unnatural acuteness of his senses, his struggle with Fear;

the character of his music and painting, his strange belief, his taste in reading. His composition of The Haunted Palace is significant, showing his consciousness of "the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne." The song is allegorical, depicting the fall of the "Monarch Thought." The description of the intelligent head, face, and voice occurs in stanzas II-IV; that of the insane face and expression in stanzas V, VI. Altogether, Roderick Usher inspires in his friend (i. e., the reader) strange, vague terrors. The influence of the sister's death on this wavering mind is stated in paragraphs 21-24.

IV. The author has now made clear a certain situation, on which he wishes to base his narrative. A young man, predisposed to insanity, and already somewhat unbalanced, is completely unnerved by the death of his twin sister, to whom he was 'especially attached, with whom he had a peculiarly sympathetic affinity, and whose body is temporarily laid in the vault of the house.

V. The narrative of the night of horror (paragraphs 25-41).

1. Introductory (paragraph 25): tempest; nervousness of guest; mysterious sounds. Show why this preliminary paragraph must begin a blood-curdling tale.

2. The entrance of Usher (paragraphs 26-29): his condition; the tempest.

3. The name of the book chosen for reading is significant (paragraph 30). Explain the use, in working up to the climax, of quotations from the book read by the guest. Compare each quotation with the description of the sound that immediately followed it. Observe the progressive nervousness and horror of the guest, and the increasing excitement of Usher.

The use of sound in working up to the climax of this story is particularly good because Usher has already been described as peculiarly sensitive to sounds. Notice the progressive clearness of the sounds that proceed from the "distant part of the house." Do they tell you what is taking place?

4. Climax: appearance of sister; terrified flight of guest;

death of Usher and his sister; destruction of house. VI. The motifs of this tale are the two most hideous an author could choose - insanity and premature burial. One dislikes to dwell on such topics. But it would be hard to find another story with such perfect unity of tone as has this Poe has followed without a fault his own teaching: "In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design."

one.

Constantine the Great built in Constantinople a magnificent palace of red porphyry, in which princes of the blood royal were born. These princes were called "Porphyrogene." The use of the title for the "Monarch Thought" in Usher's song suggests that the mind is full of conceptions as splendid as the beauties of the Byzantine court at its most prosperous period.

Study of diction and sentence-structure and other rhetorical features may be included in the structural study outlined above, since the same principle of effectiveness governs them.

If possible, the class should now read Poe's Ligeia, with the excellent analysis of the tale printed in Hamilton's Materials and Methods of Fiction, pages 189 to 195.

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM

I. Read the story through, and determine what effect the writer wishes to produce by it. Think through the tale

again, and decide whether it is written with the same unity of effect you found in The Fall of the House of Usher.

In this case the story must be told by the one who experienced the adventure, because only through him could it become known. The listener is the reader, as the guest was the reader in The Fall of the House of Usher. As in the story just analyzed, the introduction to the narrative is very long, the description being largely disposed of before the narrative begins, so that the narrative may move rapidly and without impediment.

II. Introduction to the man's story: paragraphs 1-19. 1. Note the effect of the abrupt beginning.

2. The character of the adventure is foreshadowed by the effect it had on the man's physique: paragraphs 1, 2. 3. The spot chosen for telling the story is important. It is a high cliff overlooking the scene of the adventure, the proper place to see the phenomena the writer has to describe. The perilousness of the place where the story is to be told also adds to the effect of the story on the hearer. To be on top of the cliff, even far back from its verge, would terrify any normal person. The "old man," even in his "shattered nervous condition," is not disturbed by this situation; and that fact helps us to realize that an experience which he would call "terrifying" must have been fearful beyond the power of an ordinary imagination to conceive.

4. The place of the adventure is located: paragraphs 5-8. Definite naming and placing make it seem real"that particularizing manner" makes the account more vivid.

5. An account of the Maelstrom in action is given in

paragraphs 9-17. The fearful sight is made more terrible by a stunning noise. Only to look on is frightful beyond the power of words to express; how much worse to be in it! The pretense to scientific accuracy makes the account seem true. The notes in your text doubtless tell you something of the character of Poe's "science."

6. Transition to the narrative: paragraphs 18-19. III. The "old man's" story: paragraphs 20-51. 1. Introduction: paragraphs 20-23. Habits of the brothers; their courage; the matter-of-fact manner of the narrator gives a semblance of reality to the story; the men are brought reasonably into a dangerous situation. How is the ordinary danger shown? Are these men so reckless as to forfeit your sympathy? Time-a deceptively pleasant day, three years ago.

2. Narrative proper: paragraphs 24–51.

a. Combination of events leading to trouble: (a) "By my watch" significance of italics? (b) Unusual and sudden storm. In the general introduction an ordinary movement of the maelstrom occurred, and it filled the spectator with sickening terror; how much worse is this combination of hurricane and Moskoe-ström!

b. Trace the narrative step by step to its climax. Note the use of noise to add to terror. Does the tale seem real in Poe's manner of telling it? The situation is terrible beyond description - beyond the grasp of the imagination; the writer therefore tells its effect on the men. One brother is made insane; the other becomes calm and composed, and is