Tuesday, January 8, 2013

What rhetorical strategies does Poe use in the introduction to "The Fall of the House of Usher"?I need at least five rhetorical strategies.

He uses sound, especially alliteration:  dull, dark, dreary, desolate, decayed depression, dreariness--and this is just paragraph one.

He uses punctuation as a rhetorical strategy: in paragraph two the narrator frequently breaks us his speech, which the text signifies through the dash (--) to indicate his fragmented thoughts brought about by what he sees, the House of Usher.

He uses personification, referring to "eye-windows" twice in paragraph one.

He uses sensory images repeatedly to create mood: the day is "soundless," the trunks of the trees are "white," and there is an "iciness" about him.

He uses analogy: he feels a depression somewhat like the "after-dream" of opium; "it is like "the hideous dropping off of the veil." 

One for good luck:  he uses metaphor in paragraph two when he says "it was the apparent heart of the request."

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