Homework Question on “The Purloined Letter” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”
- Your essay should be typed, double-spaced, and three – four pages long.
- Please follow the MLA format guidelines.
- NO OUTSIDE SOURCES ARE ALLOWED FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT
- You need to include at least three direct quotes from the story to support your argument. When you type the title of a short story, put it in quotation marks.
- Do not submit in a paper that is faintly or otherwise badly printed. Plan ahead.
- Please respond to the following topic: There are obvious differences between “The Purloined Letter” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Do you see any similarities between them?
- Give specific evidence from the stories to support your answer.
- Please structure your paper this way:
- The introductory paragraph should provide a clear statement of YOUR ANSWER to your chosen topic.
- DO NOT introduce your paper with the question itself.
- After you have provided your answer (which is your thesis), explain how you know you are right (that is, give your evidence).
- Use one paragraph for each piece of evidence or for each type of evidence; you should have 3 – 4 of these “body” paragraphs.
- Be sure to include a considerable number of direct quotes as part of your evidence.
- Conclude by explaining why what you have said is important. How do your thesis and evidence help us to understand the story better?
Homework Answer on “The Purloined Letter” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”
The two stories “The Purloined Letter” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” are written by the same author known as Edgar Allan Poe. The two are among several stories written by Poe. “The Purloined Letter” is a story about a letter that is lost and a Prefect of Police in Paris known as Monsieur G is seriously in search for it. “The Fall of the House of Usher” talks about the disagreements among different personalities that led to the fall of the house of Usher.
Despite the different dimensions taken by the two stories, there are similarities exhibited in them, and this is the point of focus in this paper.In both stories, Poe evidently uses a similar technique of writing where the use of the first person pronoun is evident. For example, in the story “The Purloined Letter” the pronoun ‘I’ is used extensively. Poe articulates that:
For myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics, which had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Roget. I looked upon it… (Poe 1).The story “The Fall of the House of Usher” also uses the first person pronoun extensively. Poe articulates that:I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion… I reflected, that a mere different arrangement… I reined my horse to the precipitous…I now proposed to myself… (Poe 5).