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Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building.
This quotation comes from the narrator as he approaches the House of Usher and is immediately unnerved by its eerie atmosphere. The narrator’s gut reaction to fear, however, is to seek out a rational explanation because he believes that languishing in fear simply begets more fear. He therefore focuses on the physicality of the house, its architecture, its stones, in order to ground himself in reality. It’s up to the reader to decide whether they find his rationalization convincing or if they believe he’s even convinced himself.
I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room…
This quotation describes the narrator’s sleeplessness the night of the storm. At this point, he has lived in the House of Usher for a few weeks, and Roderick’s superstitious moods, Madeline’s death, and the gloomy atmosphere have started to rattle even the determined skepticism of the narrator. As he does at the beginning of the story, the narrator attempts to find rational explanations for his feelings, trying to locate his fears in the darkness and room’s decor. Once again, the narrator’s explanation isn’t implausible, but likely feels weak given the other strangeness around him.
