How the narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" thinks to himself when he is unnerved by the sight of the story's protagonist's house , “although there are undoubtedly very simple combinations of natural objects that have the power to influence us, yet the analysis of this power lies in considerations beyond our depth” (Poe 200). Although the narrator of his story is unable to describe what specifically concerns him about the house, Poe himself does not seem to believe that such considerations are truly "beyond our reach," and even wrote a humorous essay titled "The Philosophy of Furniture " to describe the effects of the different internal provisions. Although the essay was written to poke fun at the tone of contemporary philosophical essays, its claims seem to be reflected in some of Poe's stories such as “Ligeia” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Comparing the interior spaces in those stories with Poe's concept of the “ideal room” in his essay can illuminate Poe's process and explain why he made specific choices in his detailed descriptions of rooms and furniture. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayOne of the most noticeable things about the mansion visited by the narrator of "The Fall of the House of Usher" is its pervading darkness and melancholy. The narrator speaks of the “ebony darkness of the floors” he walks across as he heads to his old friend's room, and there he finds a “black oak floor” (202). Without the context of the essay, this description already begins to create the feeling that there is something sinister or depressing in the house. However, there may be something more to Poe's choice to include a dark wood floor in the house. In his essay, when he talks about the use of carpets, he says: "A carpet is the soul of the apartment", and the floor seen so far by the narrator has no carpet. If according to Poe the carpet is the soul of an apartment, then not only does the Usher House appear to be soulless, but there is a deep darkness in the empty place where the soul should be, a suggestion that could also have implications on the nature of the characters. Earlier in the story, the narrator states that the "House of Usher" is an "appellation that seemed to include, in the minds of the farmers who used it, both the family and the family mansion" (201). If the physical House of Usher is soulless, this could imply that the House of Usher as a lineage is also soulless. Although it is difficult to determine how seriously Poe meant “The Philosophy of Furniture,” and if something as seemingly insignificant as the lack of a carpet should really imply something as serious as the lack of a soul, this sad implication would not be in line with the decline of the House throughout history. Aside from the simple carpet, the interiors of the rooms in the House of Usher differ from Poe's ideal room in several ways. Poe says that in the ideal room, "Two large sofas of rosewood and crimson silk... form the only seating, except two light conversation chairs." In Roderick Usher's room, the "furniture in general" is described only as "plentiful, uncomfortable, ancient, and worn" (202), making it safe to assume that the amount of furniture in the room far exceeds the amount Poe believes ideal. Poe also describes the owner of the ideal room as "asleep on a sofa", which is supposed to imply that the sofas in the room are comfortable enough for the owner to choose to sleep on instead of a bed, which is also not the case in Roderick's Room. A profusion ofuncomfortable furniture seems like a waste, while Poe's ideal room seems to be more efficient. The windows also contrast with Poe's ideal vision. He states that in this ideal room there are “only two windows” which are “large, reaching to the floor”, the panes of which are “of crimson colored glass”. The windows in Roderick's rooms are "long, narrow, and pointed, and at such a great distance from the black oak floor as to be quite inaccessible from within" (202). While they allow “faint glimmers of crimson light” to enter the room, they are the wrong size and in the wrong location, so high up that for maintenance purposes they may seem impractical. While none of these other discrepancies between Roderick's room and the "ideal room" seem to have as serious implications as the carpet, each difference seems to be another way in which Poe suggests that there is something wrong with the room, the home and elsewhere. the characters for letting themselves live in such a place. In his essay, Poe emphasizes the superiority of architecture and decoration in England. “In interior decoration,” he says, “the English are supreme.” Interestingly, the bridal chamber in the English abbey purchased by the narrator of "Ligeia" is much more bizarre and extravagant than the house described in "The Fall of the House of Usher." The narrator, in fact, makes the mistake that Poe most often attributes to his fellow Americans and which, according to him, significantly affects their sense of interior decoration. “In America,” he says, “dollars being the supreme insignia of the aristocracy, their display may be considered, in general terms, the only means of aristocratic distinction; and the vulgar, in search of models, is insensibly led to confuse the two completely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty". The narrator himself seems to be aware of this flaw, stating that he has "succumbed, with a childish perversity...to a more than regal display of magnificence within" the abbey (166). He refers to the “splendid and fantastic drapery…the solemn carvings of Egypt” and the “Bedlam patterns of tufted gold carpets” as “follies.” Poe, in his essay, even goes so far as to say that people who decorate their homes with carpets made up of "enormous, tentacled, radiating devices" are "sons of Baal and worshipers of Mammon", once again appearing to use the carpets of a character to suggest something sinister about him; this time, who is a demon worshiper, reflected in the "Bedlam" models. While this line from his essay was probably an exaggeration intended for humorous purposes, what it suggests doesn't seem too far from the tone of his story. It is the bridal chamber of the story, however, that departs most dramatically from Poe's ideals. First, the narrator describes the room as “pentagonal in shape and capacious in size” (167). Poe states that his ideal room “is oblong – about thirty feet long and twenty-five feet wide – a shape affording the best (ordinary) opportunities for the arrangement of furniture.” There is no doubt that the room only has four sides. He doesn't feel the need to explicitly make it clear that this is the best shape for a room. The shape of the bridal chamber, then, is otherworldly, dramatically different from anything he describes in his essay, and does not allow for any of the “best (ordinary)” furniture arrangements due to the different angles. To each of the ideal corners of the room, Poe attributes "large and splendid Sèvres vases, in which blooms a profusion of sweet and lively flowers." However, in the bridal chamber, every corner is instead occupied by “a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs of the species opposite Luxor” (168). Without the context of the essay, the 2015