The Birth-Mark and The Fall of the House of Usher

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Use of different literary elements
Conclusion
Works cited

Introduction

Over the years, writers have continuously used literary elements to put across their messages. These literal elements differ from writer to writer depending on the type of story under question. Poe in his work, The Fall of the House of Usher and Hawthorne in his work The Birthmark; they have employed different literary elements. They include foreshadowing, analogy, tone, setting, personification, and paradox. Foreshadowing is giving advance indications of what may happen.

The analogy is the illation that things may mean the same if they are similar in some aspects. The setting means the environment and context in which an event is set, and it may include time, characters, or circumstances, especially in fiction. Personification is giving non-human objects human nature.

Tone, on the other side states the quality of someones voice. It also talks of the pitch of ones voice. Finally, paradox means a statement that negates itself. These two stories employ literary elements like foreshadowing, analogy, tone, personification, setting, and paradox.

Use of different literary elements

The first literary element used here is a paradox. Hawthorne posits, It was the sad confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part (Lauter 1368).

Hawthorne uses this kind of paradox to remark on humanity issues like perfection and imperfection. There is also the use of paradox to comment on spiritual and earthly matters. For instance, Hawthorne points, In his grasp, the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul (Lauter 1368). He contradicts these two issues. While he admits that man is imperfect, he expects his wife to be perfect void of the birthmark.

On the other side, Poe employs paradox widely. For instance, Poe states that there was iciness, a sinking, and a sickening of the heart an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime (Lauter 1216). Poe contradicts himself in the sentence; hence, it is a paradox. The iciness and the sinking heart cannot be boring; rather, this environment should be tense not dreary as Poe puts across.

Personification comes out clearly in these two stories. Poe starts by looking to the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain-upon the bleak walls-upon the vacant eye-like windows, upon a few rag edges-and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees& (Lauter 1218). Here, Poe personifies the house and makes it appear as death itself for it had eye-like windows. Hawthorne also uses personification in his work.

He posits, Had she been less beautiful-if Envys self could have found aught else to sneer at-he might have felt his affection heightened (Lauter 1370). Here he personifies envy stating that he (envy), could have felt his affection heightened. He also says, Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her specters within the dim region of her sway& (Lauter 1369). Again, in this example, Hawthorne calls sleep her.

Poe uses a lot of foreshadowing in The Fall of the House of Usher. For instance, he says, white trunks of decayed trees, the black and lurid tarn, and the vacant, eyelike windows Lauter 1218-1219). These words used mainly to describe the house that was to fall later foreshadows how things will turn out to be. These words create a dismal environment and the reader cannot fail to sense that something will go wrong in this short story. Additionally, Poe says, Ushers mansion had, barely perceptible fissure (Lauter 1236).

These perceptible fissures foreshadow the inevitable fall of Ushers mansion. Immediately after Hawthorne marries, the birthmark on his wifes face starts to foreshadow his dissatisfaction. He says their sexual life was, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again, and glimmering to-and-fro with every pulse of emotion (Lauter 1365). These only foreshadow the fall out that these two couples had in the end.

Hawthorne uses analogy widely as he tries to draw similarities between the birthmark on his wifes face and other objects or occurrences. To Hawthorne, this birthmark had become the spectral Hand that wrote mortality, where he would fain have worshipped (Lauter 1325). He equated this mark to mortality and sorrow, and this is an analogy.

Because his wife had this birthmark, he was doomed to, haunting awareness of his wifes liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death (Lauter 1328). On the other hand, Poe uses an analogy when he, feels a depression somewhat like the after-dream of opium, like the hideous dropping off of the veil (Lauter 1256). He also uses Ushers mansion to represent Ushers life and the fall of the former signifies the fall of the latter.

Tone comes out strongly in these two stories. Poe chooses clear-cut words that bring out clearly the tone of the story. For instance, in describing the violent storm Poe says, it was singular in its terror and beauty (Lauter 1268). He also posits that from the roof came sullen waters of the tarn (Lauter 1270).

The tone here also sounds the impending danger. Hawthorne says, The birthmark in question is a tiny strawberry mark in the shape of a singular mark that bore not a little similarity to a human hand (Lauter 1392). This tone indicates the attitude that Hawthorne had towards his wifes birthmark.

Finally, the setting of these two stories stands out vividly. The setting in The Fall of the House of Usher projects the theme of the story. To reach the house, Poe had to walk through singularly dreary tract of country (Lauter 1203). From this setting, the reader can conclude that the Ushers house is located in a dangerous place; therefore, doomed to crumble.

On the other hand, Hawthorne places Aylmer, the main character, in the latter part of the last century (Lauter 1321). Given that Hawthorne questions a lot about nature and creation, this setting, which is probably at the end of the 1700s, coincides with the rising of positivism in early 1800s. Positivism idealists argued that man could learn everything formally, scientifically or physically

Conclusion

Both Poe and Hawthorne employ a rich variety of literary elements. These include foreshadowing, paradox, tone, setting, personification, and analogy. These literary elements are meant to spice up the stories and help in passing the message that the writers intended to put across. Each of these literary elements is used precisely to bring out specific meaning in the discussed stories. The two stories, The Birthmark and The Fall of the House of Usher are epitomes of well-crafted works that appreciates literary composition.

These are must-read stories because they are rich in style, informative, and fun. Even though they were written many years ago, they remain to be masterpieces in the literature world.

Works cited

Lauter, Paul. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Concise Edition. 1936 ISBN: 0-618-25663-6

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The Birth-Mark and The Fall of the House of Usher

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