THE FUNCTION OF SPACE IN THE SHORT STORY "THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER" (EDGAR ALLAN POE): A STRUCTURAL AND SEMANTIC ANALYSIS BASED ON THE THEORIES OF BAKHTIN, BOURDIEU, AND BACHELARD

Abstract

"The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) is a short story written by the American Edgar Allan Poe, famous for his horror stories and considered the inventor of detective fiction. In it, he creates a peculiar setting in relation to space, an aspect addressed by the Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin within his concept of the chronotope, in order to explain the aesthetic effects of its use as a fictional tool. Among the basic elements of narrative—plot, narrator, character, time, and space—the latter primarily refers to the location where the story takes place. It is classified as closed spaces, such as houses, means of transport, etc., or open spaces, such as cities, towns, and others, which are physical locations. Beyond this idea, we have social space, where the characters circulate, and psychological space, where their inner atmospheres reside. A well-constructed space lends verisimilitude and authenticity to the narrated story. It is known that the property refers both to the physical structure and to the family that names it, conditioning the actions and emotional state of its inhabitants to it. Several times throughout the narration, she is described in a humanized way, leading us to perceive that the decadence of the Usher family is reflected in the house they live in. There is a poem, entitled "The Haunted Palace," published separately in the Baltimore Museum magazine in April 1839, which deals with this relationship between the environment and the characters, and which was included in the story. The objective of this work is to analyze everything from the geographical space of the story in question to the psychological space. Through the teachings of Bakhtin, Bourdieu, and Bachelard, we seek to emphasize the notions of space by weaving structural and semantic analyses, using examples taken from the text, both in prose and verse, showing how space is used and how it interferes in the narrative and the characters, to the point that we can consider it, in this work, as a character in itself.