Fall of the House of Usher, excerpt By Edgar Allan Poe
Upon my entrance, Usher rose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted
me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality-of
the constrained effort of the ennuyél man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance
convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, 1
gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly
altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself
to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet
the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an
eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a
surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril
unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a
want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity;-these features, with an
inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not
easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these
features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted
to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye,
above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all
unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could
not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
Bored
Which of the following correctly describes the main purpose of the narrative in this paragraph? (5
points)
a
Developing character
b
Creating conflict
Creating setting
d
Resolving conflict