Comparing Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher and Gardner’s The Ravages of

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher and John Gardner’s The Ravages of Spring Edgar Allan Poe’s â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher† and John Gardner’s â€Å"The Ravages of Spring† are two literary works which are unique; however, at the same time indistinguishably similar. Poe’s short story is a piece, which characterizes eighteenth century philosophy whereas Gardner’s tale is more modern. In fact, â€Å"The Ravages of Spring† is a story based on Poe’s â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher,† which â€Å"contemporizes its horror† (Fenlon 481). Both stories are inexplicably gruesome and leave a reader overwhelmed by the bizarreness of the tales. Nevertheless it is the strangeness of the two stories that distinguishes them within the literary world and makes Poe and Gardner authors of gothic literature. â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher† and â€Å"The Ravages of Spring† parallel within their eerie tones towards the stormy environments and the supernatural houses wh ich set the basis for both of the stories. However, by the conclusion of both tales Gardner’s remake of â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher† is still a considerably lighter version of Poe’s gothic story. Both stories correlate within their morbid tones as the narrators of the two tales discuss the stormy environment, which plagues the beginning of the stories. Poe characterizes the storm as â€Å"abroad in all its wrath†¦with huge masses of agitated vapour† (Poe 412). Then he goes onto describe an â€Å"unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hugh about and enshrouded the mansion† (Poe 412). Thus, it is evident through Poe’s language that he is exerting a frightening and supernatural tone to describe this malevolent storm. ... ...oe’s tale and successfully does so when analyzing the paralleled tones towards the atmospheres and the houses which plague the two stories. However, when concentrating on the end result of both pieces the works are easily distinguishable from one another. One must still note that â€Å"The Ravages of Spring† is a brilliant reverence to â€Å" The Fall of the House of Usher† and both works are truly thought provoking and ingenious. Works Cited Fenlon, Katherine Feeney. â€Å"John Gardner’s The Ravages of Spring as re-creation of The Fall of the House of Usher.† Studies in Short Fiction. 31.3 (1994): 481-488. Gardner, John. â€Å"The Ravages of Spring.† The King’s Indian: Stories and Tales. New York: Ballantine, 1974: 39-71. Poe, Edgar Allan. â€Å"The Fall of the House of Usher.† Tales and Sketches. Cambridge: Belknap, 1978: 397-417. 4452 - 1 – Marlow Engl. 12.37