Reply to a classmate regarding their post; be sure to offer a new quote or idea to keep the conversation flowing!  Be sure to quote, cite, and reference from the text(s) using appropriate APA format. Both responses must be at least 150 words. 

1. Reply to this post made by classmate named Crystal:  

“The Fall of the House of Usher.”  Edgar Allen Poe writes a twisted, morbid gothic tale of misery, sanity and a haunted house. Poe’s writing engages the reader with morbid curiosity and fascination “The Fall of the House of Usher,” draws you in and keeps the reader to the very end. I believe that’s why Poe’s works remain so popular even in today’s culture. I personally love all of Poe’s work and find the gothic nature of this story to be very engaging. One of the terms I choose to apply to the reading was, exposition the section of the plot where the characters, settings and situation are introduced. In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the story begins with the narrator arriving to the house of Usher and finding that the place is gloomy almost like the setting of the house is dark and twisted. Poe’s (2017) gave an example of this,  

“I know not how it was –but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say  insufferable   for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible.” (p.749)  

I find the house to be one of the first characters that we are introduced to us because, of how much influence the house has over the other characters. The other characters never truly act on their own accord they are always influenced by the darkness of the house. This darkness that the house has over it creates this bad guy character like, in horror films with possessed houses. The other term I choose was Frame Narrative even though Usher’s child boyhood friend is never named he is the Frame Narrative he is telling a story inside a story through his own eyes. The whole story the narrative is telling his story about Usher’s story in his own point of view or as seen through his own eyes.  

2. Reply to this post made by classmate named Lacey:

Christopher Columbus was an explorer and a colonist that made 4 trips across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain, which is when he landed on the territories of the Native Americans. In the Letter of Discovery Christopher Columbus claims that he discovers series of islands. In my opinion Columbus nor Smith did not really “discover” the New World, people already lived there but both their journey still marked the journey of centuries. Christopher Columbus only cared about being remembered and being popular. 

John Smith was an explorer and a soldier. John Smith seemed to have an open mind towards the Native Americans. John Smith dealings with Powhatan, Smith encountered many other tribes during his voyages. Most encounters were positive, ”…they boldly demanded what we were, and what we would; but after many circumstances they seemed very kind…” John Smith then sought an investment in the New World commercial venture and joined the London Company.

I think they are both reliable narrators, based on the facts they experienced.

For citations and references The Norton Anthology American Literature (shorter ninth edition) Beginnings to 1865 MUST be used.