Other times, this was the opposite way around, however, regardless of the change, is one aspect or another the setting remained the same. Another instance of this was from the 1820’s to the 1860’s during the dark romanticism period of several authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Joyce Carol Oates. In their various pieces they have a gothic theme, with many dreary aspects to their setting to intensify the meaning of their pieces and to show the gothic theme. Two of these pieces that are very similar, but also very different at the same time demonstrate a parallel theme, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Edgar Allan Poe and ‘Where is Here?’ by Joyce Carol Oates. ‘In The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Poe and ‘Where is Here?’ by Oates their settings are important for several different reasons, such as effect on mood, ease of the reader, and level of drama in each text. The first way that setting is important in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Edgar Allan Poe and “Where is here?’ by Joyce Carol Oates is how it effects the mood. Mood can be described as certain feeling a reader feels due to the word choice and setting of the …show more content…
Both texts are rather gloomy and strange texts through many aspects of them. Edgar Allan Poe prefers for his to be more dramatic than Joyce Carol Oates, however. On page 306 when the narrator explains the strange occurrence him and Usher experience, “But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation…” When they encountered this unnatural light they were taken back and the story reached its climax of the sister returning from the vault. This fog was something that does not happen in normal day occurrences, so when Poe incorporated this he was able to make this story supernatural dramatic. In ‘Where is Here?’ on page 331, the father was able to convince the unwelcomed guest to leave, “He shut the door, and locked it. Locked it! His hands were shaking and his heart beat angrily.” This part of the text showed how dramatic the family believed this visit to be. Oates was able to demonstrate the normal level of drama she had wished for in this less dark text through the