Edger Allan Poe's short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” tells the gothic, hunting story of a friend's failed attempt to help another friend. The vague beginning of the story describing a deteriorating house gives an eerie feeling to the story. Soon the narrator finds himself involved in an interesting family dynamic of a brother and sister in the Usher family. With both brothers suffering from mysterious illnesses, death soon finds their sister Madeline while Roderick Usher continues to suffer mentally. Madeline's ghostly return after being buried alive by her brother and the house collapsing to the ground ends the story dramatically. From the haunted setting to the supernatural events, the story definitely doesn't lack a dull moment. Throughout the story Poe envelops the reader in a sense of fear using certain literary techniques. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” Poe portrays various forms of doubling to terrify the reader through the juxtaposition of the ordinary with the strange. The story's opening images show how doubling Poe into a reflection can alter the original vision into something frightening. From the narrator's first sight of the house there was "a sense of unbearable darkness [that] pervaded [his] spirit" indicating that there was a terrifying aura around this house (Poe 1553). However, the way the narrator describes the house was quite ordinary: “on the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain --- on the dingy walls --- on the empty eye-shaped windows --- on some lush sedges --- and on some white trunks of rotten trees” (1553). Even though the description is seemingly ordinary, the narrator's reaction manipulates the readers' imagination into believing that the aura of the house is more frightening... middle of paper... the seemingly normal. Poe took everyday events and juxtaposed them with the strange, turning them into something everyone can fear; a simple reflection in water, a family member or a work of fiction. Poe creates a disturbing idea to fear the common leaving the reader with the idea that everything around him has the potential to terrify. As the story reaches its conclusion, Poe successfully manipulates the reader's imagination into believing that no matter what happens, there is always something to fear. However it begs the question, is Poe making fun of a world around him that is scared of the smallest things? Or does Poe truly believe that everything in the world has the potential to terrify? Even though these questions are asked, Poe still creates a scary story by manipulating the imagination into believing the worst of everything.