Poe's Stories brief biography of edgar allan poe

Page Number 126
Explanation and Analysis
In this famous passage, the narrator of the story looks upon the House of Usher and immediately feels a sense of gloom and horror. The house has been the site of great misery in recent years, and here, Poe suggests that this misery is palpable--the house itself seems to record and radiate the emotions of the people who lived there.
The passage is a great example of Poe's Gothic style. The
Gothic genre, popular in the 19th century, often hinges upon a big, intimidating house full of memories and mystery.
The house is practically a character in the story, just as it is in the best Gothic novels. The house is like the "Greek chorus" of the story--both witnessing the events of the plot and elevating them to their emotional peak.
William Wilson Quotes
Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real appellation. This has been already too much an object for the scorn – for the horror – for the detestation of my race.
Related Characters William Wilson (speaker)
Related Themes:
Page Number 168
Explanation and Analysis
Here, Poe introduces us to William Wilson--a man who's taken on his current, fake name because his real name has become associated with too much scandal and evil. Right away, Poe creates a mood of suspense and excitement--we want to know what, exactly, Wilson did that was so awful.
The story also reveals itself to be another "retelling" from memory, as many of the stories in this collection are--and so
Wilson is immediately made somewhat unreliable in that he's telling his own story, and maybe misremembering or falsifying information.
We should note that William Wilson is the first named narrator in Poe's collection of short stories. And yet the name "William Wilson" is obviously fake--in other words,
the fact that we've got the narrator's name doesn't mean that we know anything more about him than we did about the unnamed narrators in the previous stories. And just like the other narrators in the book, William Wilson is an unlikely everyman--even if we can't relate to all of his experiences, we're meant to identify with his point of view,
and his horror becomes our own.
A large mirror, – so at first it seemed tome in my confusion now stood where none had been perceptible before;
and, as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image,
but with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering gait.

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