Poe, "The House of Usher," and the American Gothic

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is arguably one of the most dominant tales haunting American Gothic literature.  This iconic story’s influence lies in the inspired tensions between its simplicity and its inexplicable mingling of supernatural and psychological elements.  Poe, the “House of Usher,” and the American Gothic discusses how Poe’s tale continues to serve as a model for exploring the deepest and most primitive corners of the human mind and heart. This study uses the Usher-inspired matrix of outsiders, uncanny houses, and psychic collapse and to reveal Poe’s continued relevance to the genre through the fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Henry James, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King.