As the period of American Romanticism emerged, so did a new breed of literature and writers with a style all their own. As the romantics sought to rise above all dull realities in search of higher truth, they began a movement revolving around exotic settings, in the more natural past state, or world distant from the typical industrial age of the time. Romantics began to be able to mold worlds from their own perceptions, sometimes finding these worlds through the supernatural, or in legends or folklore. Secondly, Romantics contemplated the natural world until its dull reality vanished, solely revealing its underlying beauty and truth. Arising from these new techniques came the Romantic approach to the development of Gothic novels, and short stories. Having roots in French, German, and English literature, this was uncharted territory for rising American Romantic authors. Most notable for his contributions to this genre of literature was Edgar Allan Poe, who was indeed attracted to the exotic, otherworldly trappings of the Gothic. Particularly in the works of Poe, the Gothic took on a new edge toward the psychological exploration of the human mind. In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", the author depicts the workings of a human mind on the verge of insanity through the use of an allegory of which all characters and events of the story symbolize the human mind's transition into madness, universally conveying the terror that overwhelms and finally destroys the fragile mind of Roderick Usher.
Poe establishes many connections for the reader, hinting at the true significance of the story through symbols portrayed as characters and events. The actual "House of Usher" is a symbol in itself. Poe leads to the mansions very significance through many detailed hints derived from personification of the house's physical aspects. These hints are brought out through redundant repetition of obvious connections that can be made to elicit the house as a human mind.
