ESSAY POE

Contrasts and Similarities: The Fall of The House of Usher and A Rose for Emily

 

 

These two gothic writings have more things in common than just the style. As there are a lot similarities there are differences too. I will point out some of the taking in consideration the two short stories.

 

 

Starting with the similarities, from the beginning of both of the stories we get isolating feelings from the protagonists. We see how Roderick has only his sister and how Emily has just her servant in which both of them makes them distant to the outside world. Another similarity is how death had control over them in almost similar ways, such as they both went crazy and could not return to their senses when a close one died. In both of the stories you sense a bit of evil and fear. In The Fall of the House of Usher the narrator is intriguing, it seems like the friend of Frederick is Edgar Allan Poe. Some could argue it is not but if you pay close attention you will figure it out. In A Rose for Emily, Emily lost her father when she was thirty years young. She took it very hard on herself because her father was that only man figure Emily ever had.

 

 

In terms of contrasts, death comes in again but in different aspects. In Faulkner's story death marks the end of an era and in Poe's story it illustrates the freeing g of the spirits to a better place. The style might be the same but it changes when the aspect of region comes in, Poe concentrates on Classic gothic where death is showed as a rejection of self-restraint where Usher himself created mystery and Faulkner goes to Southern gothic style to challenge the ideals of society at that time.

 

 

To conclude, these two short stories became such a huge part of the literature world because of having genres that people were not used to but made their way in for having interesting plot lines and dealing with real life problems in a fictional way.