First of all is the short story, “Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe (1839). The reader is brought into the story not knowing anything. All the reader knows is what the narrator of the story knows. The reader knows that he was an old friend of Usher, …show more content…
The reader here is also supposed to make assumptions. This time, it is not about the characters, but about the house itself. The reader doesn’t know much about this house, just that it is being taken over by noises. The characters themselves react much in the same way many of the readers would. They got scared and started abandoning these parts of the house. “I took Irene’s arm and forced her to run with me to the wrought-iron door, not waiting to look back” (p. 41). The main characters of the story didn’t even check to see what the noise was. They heard a noise, and ran. At first they just abandoned the areas of the house that the noise was in, but later ended up abandoning everything; including the house. Neither the characters nor the reader know what the sound was and they never will. They are just meant to make assumptions, and because it is the unknown that is taking over the house, it triggers fear. The reader tends to make false assumptions, assuming the worst over the more logical answer. The reader is also meant to imagine what would happen if they heard noises in certain areas of their own home. While it is very unlikely that the events of the story come true, the reader still imagines it. They don’t care about being reasonable here, they care about saving themselves from an unknown