"Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Fall of House of Usher"

I have always been a big fan of the book "Legend of Sleepy Hollow".  I think the main reason is because the main character is from Connecticut, like me.  Also, when I was younger we would go on haunted hayrides every year and the headless horseman would ALWAYS appear.  This book reminds me a lot of home, with the detailed description of what fall is like.  Fall is my favorite season back home, with the changing of the leaves and the brisk weather.  This was one of my favorite quotes describing the scenery. "It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet."  Washington Irving can write so well about this because he lived through the weather.  I can only image how beautiful it was back then with no paved roads and the old, rustic houses.  He paints such a descriptive picture of this, I can see myself in the actual town, running from the headless horseman.


"Fall of the House of Usher" was another book that I read in high school that is perfect for the gothic genre.  This book has always creeped me out a bit.  It has the perfect gothic setting.  Some words that describe the house are "insufferable gloom", "insufferable", "vacant eye-like windows" and "iciness".  These words all give off the gothic sense.  My favorite quote describing the house is "There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime."  To me this quote sets up the rumor that the house is the doppleganger of Roderick Usher.  The narrator gets the same feeling from being with Roderick as he does by looking at the house.  Then in the end when Roderick gets killed by his sister, the house also collapses.  I fully agree with the theory that the house represents Roderick in a different form.  Doppleganger is also a common theme in gothic novels so it would bring the novel around full circle.