Henry Barthes:...how many of you have ever felt the weight pressing down on you? I have. Everyone... Poe wrote about these things over hundred years ago. So, as we read, we can see that the House of Usher is not merely an old, decrepit castle in disrepair. It is also a state of being.
"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. ... I looked upon the simple landscape of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul ... There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart."
