on
3.5/5
Non-Fiction
- Get link
- Other Apps
Rating: 4/5
Pages: 36
Started: 30 July 2023
Finished: 31 July 2023
Summary:
An unnamed narrator visits his friend, Roderick Usher, in the House of Usher. As Roderick's sister succumbs to an illness and Roderick himself descends into madness, the narrator finds himself more and more affected by the eerie bleakness of the house.
Thoughts
This was a super cool short story, and I definitely enjoyed reading it; Poe's word choice is absolutely masterful. However it did feel like a shorter, less complex version of Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic. Obviously Usher came first, and inspired a lot of Mexican Gothic, but Usher felt a bit simple by comparison. It was super cool to be able to identify all the gothic traits in the story--illness, madness, the creepy house, the storm outside--and the twist to the story was definitely fun. I think longer-form and more subtle gothic fiction might be better for me in the future, but I still believe that Poe was ridiculously talented in his craft.