A Comparison of House of Usher, Bierces Beyond the Wall,...

Parallels in Poes House of Usher and Bierces Beyond the Wall, Poe’s The Black Cat and Bierces John Mortonsons Funeral, and in M.S. Found in a Bottle by Poe and Three and One are One by Bierce. When one decides to become an author, one can not help being influenced by his predecessors, causing some of ones work to reflect and echo the predecessors. Such is the case between Ambrose Bierce and his predecessor, Edgar Allen Poe. Excluding the obvious fact that both Poes and Bierces short stories show an attraction for death in its many forms, depictions of mental deteriorations, supernatural happenings, and ghostly manifestations, there are other similarities and parallels. Examples of them appear in Poes short story Fall†¦show more content†¦Bierce must have had this image in mind when he had his narrator arrive on a stormy night filled with incessant rain. The narrator in Bierces story tells the reader that the dwelling, a rather ugly one, apparently, stood in the center of its grounds, which as nearly as I could make out in the gloom were destitute of either flowers or grass. Three or four trees, writhing and moaning in the torment of the tempest, appeared to be try ing to escape from their dismal environment... in the window of [the house] was the only visible light. Something in the appearance of the place made me shudder, a performance that may have been assisted by a rill of rain water down my back as I scuttled to cover in the doorway. Even though, in The Fall of the House of Usher Poe is more verbose in describing the land and how it makes the narrator feel, the images and the mood are nearly the same. The only difference in the opening was the fact that in Beyond the Wall the storm had already started, and the storm in all its wrath did not really start until the narrator was inside the house. Not only is the setting of Beyond the Wall similar to House of Usher, but also certain descriptions of the childhood friend is also similar. Bierce wrote that the friend, Mohun Dampier, came from one of the oldest and most aristocratic families, and Poe had also said that the friend, Roderick Usher, had an ancient lineage. Both Poes