Firstly, the setting of “The Fall of the House of Usher” plays an integral part in the story because it establishes an atmosphere of dreariness, melancholy, and decay. The intro takes place in the Usher family mansion, which is isolated and located in a “singularly dreary tract of country.” The personification and description through layers of images of the house immediately stirs up in the narrator “a sense of insufferable gloom,” and it is described as having “bleak walls,” “vacant eye-like windows,” and “ghastly tree stems”. This diction is extremely descriptive, with an abundance of negative connotations, and evocations of ominous gloom that ‘seeps’ into the narrator’s, and reader’s consciousness. This atmosphere initiates a sense of foreboding and depression, even before anything concrete has physically occurred, thus suggesting that the tone of melancholy and gloom is merely inherent in the narrator’s mind. This reveals an element of his characterisation, a sense of ambiguity and of a capacity for acute analysis. This in turn develops the idea of his relationship, albeit unfounded, with the ominous sublimity of the surroundings; how an atmosphere impacts upon the human mood/psyche. This is evident when “I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn…I gazed down” This shows that the surroundings have an effect upon the narrator’s actions.
Secondly the syntax and structure of the sentences contribute to the characterisation and creation of atmosphere in the opening. For example, “That half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment”. This shows a confused diction, which may convey an already confused state of mind in the narrator. A sense of pace is induced from the very first line, with the alliteration of the cold, hard ‘d’ sounds: “during the dull, dark, and soundless day”. This suggests a tone of bitterness from the narrator and reinforces the sense of foreboding in the reader. The same effect is achieved through the use of sibilance when describing the scene before him: “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart”
Therefore, through the use of complex figurative language, layers of imagery and characterisation, Poe creates an atmosphere of foreboding and gloominess, and a psychologically intense situation in the opening of the story, setting the scene for later events.