Carl Mowery hold a doctoral degree in rhetoric and composition and has taught at Southern Illinois University and Murray State University. In the following essay, he calls "The Fall of the House of Usher" a cerebral story with little physical action and emphasizes the many interpretations the story inspires.

Of the many short stories Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "The Fall of the House of Usher" is likely the most cerebral. There is little action to carry the plot, no trips into a catacomb, no descent into a whirlpool, no crimes to be solved. Everything that occurs is told by the narrator. Despite this lack of physical action, this gothic story has remained one of Poe's most popular.

In "The Philosophy of Composition" Poe says, "If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting, we must be content to dispense with the immensely important...