Question

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 ennuyé 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, I 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.

What does the narrator believe about Roderick Usher’s greeting?

a) At first he thinks it is sincere, but then he realizes it is not.
b) At first he thinks it is meant to be offensive, but then he realizes it is not.
c) At first he thinks it is polite, but then he realizes it is not.
d) At first he thinks it is insincere, but then he realizes it is not.

Answer 1

Think about Vocabulary Usage

The Usher mansion has been neglected for far too long. It is time for our community to insist that the owners perform basic maintenance on the property. If it deteriorates further, it will become an eyesore that will affect everyone’s property values.

It’s pretty cool having a deserted mansion on the outskirts of town. The more broken-down it gets, the more it looks like a haunted house. Even though it gives some people the creeps, I think we should fix it up - just enough to make it safe - and make it into a tourist attraction. We’d sell tons of tickets at Halloween!

Complete the following statements.

Paragraphs 1 and 2

✔ make the same basic argument

.

The

✔ second

paragraph sounds more like casual conversation.

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

The correct answer is option D.

Step-by-step explanation:

At first, the narrator feels that his friend's attitude was too exaggerated.

He felt that he was trying very hard to be too polite, but then he realizes that his friend is being totally sincere, and that that is his way of being, with incoherent and inconsistent behaviors, but that were to cover his anxiety.