Point of View

Told from the point of view of an unnamed first-person narrator, this story does not use the unreliable narrator technique to expose unbelievable or horrific events. Instead, the narrator is more of an observer at first, bringing the reader along as he encounters the gloom and desperation of both the House of Usher and its inhabitants. As he stays in the house, he is drawn deeper into the spell of the house and his nervousness increases, as does the reader's.

Setting

Set in the dreary, woeful House of Usher, much of this story's tone and feeling of claustrophobic nervousness comes from its settings. The action takes place solely in the house in which the Ushers have sustained their illnesses of body and mind, and these close quarters seem to affect all who come in contact with them. The narrator says of Roderick:

"He was enchained by...