Giovanni Lorusso
Edgar Allan Poe's gloomy tale "The Fall of the House of Usher"
1. Choose a few lines from the above passage as the material for your quotations.
‘with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit’
(unbearable) (partial or total darkness) (spread through
2. Write a sentence or a few sentences integrating a phrase from Poe into a sentence of your own. The easiest way to do this is to make a comment about Poe's story. For example, if I were writing about "The Raven," I could say: At the beginning of Edgar Allan Poe's long poem "The Raven," the narrator tells us that he has stayed up late reading "a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore." It must be a pretty boring old book, because reading it leaves him "weak and weary" and "nearly napping."
I have read a interesting passage of Edgar Allan Poe's gloomy tale "The Fall of the House of Usher" where the author describes a vivid image of a scary looking home that had ‘a few white trunks of decayed trees’ he said which gave me goose bumps while reading. He also sounded uncertain about this building which he says gave him “an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart” feeling which I enjoyed because I like scary stories.
3. Introduce a quotation and then explain what the quotation means. For example: In "The Raven," Edgar Allan Poe's narrator tells us that the events of the poem happened "in the bleak December / And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor." The second line refers to the fact that he's sitting by a lit fireplace, and it's just a fancy, spooky way of describing the effect of the firelight as it shines off the floor.
In a passage of Edgar Allan Poe’s gloomy tale “The Fall of the House of Usher” the narrator says this line which I found spooky “with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium” which I think he means he didn’t have a good feeling about this place comparing it to something so bad it could not be found on earth. He makes you paint of this scary place using great words such as “ no eathly” and “dream”.
4. Paraphrase a short passage from Poe. For example: In "The Raven," Poe's narrator tells us that the events of the poem take place in the winter. At the beginning of the poem, he's sitting cozily by the fire, falling asleep over an old book
In Edgar Allan Poe’s gloomy tale ‘The Fall of the House of Usher” the narrator talks about this story happening in autumn. In the beginning of the passage he stated that it’s a soundless day with clouds appearing very low and dullish dark skies I can visually see the leaves falling to the ground, trees are looking dead setting up the stage for a great spooky tale.
5. Now here's a tough one: try to paraphrase then entire passage from "The Fall of the House of Usher" in five short sentences.
In the passage of Edgar Allan Poe’s gloomy tale “The Fall of the House of Ushers” the narrator tells a story of him traveling through the autumn cold street on a horse through the country dirt roads to this House of Usher. When he first saw the house he felt very shaken and unsure about it because of the old walls, creepy empty windows , dead looking plants and dying tree trunks painting a horror movie home giving a ghostly vibe. Something about this place made him feel uncomfortable approaching with caution. It gave him a heart attack to be at this place questioning himself about what was it that made him feel this way about this home he stood there thinking in the shadows.
6. Now here's a really tough one: shorten your paraphrase to two short sentences!
In the passage of Edgar Allan Poe’s gloomy tale “The Fall of the House of Ushers” the narrator is traveling to a home that gave him the goose bumps when he arrived because it had creepy windows, dead looking plants, and dying tree trunks. He had a spooky ghostly feeling about this place it made him uncomfortable and wonder what was making him feel this way about the House of Usher.
7. Share your work in groups of three or four, discussing each person's work and the differences between them. Try to help your classmates by giving constructive criticism about their work!
