Final answer:
The mood of "The Fall of the House of Usher" is dark and foreboding, with Edgar Allan Poe using the setting and language to amplify the gloominess and themes of decay. Words like "melancholy," "iciness," and phrases like "insufferable gloom" enhance the mood, while the story's reflective elements underscore the fatalistic tone.
Step-by-step explanation:
The mood of "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe is predominantly gloomy, macabre, and suffused with a sense of impending doom. Poe masterfully uses the Gothic setting of the story—a decaying mansion set in a bleak landscape—to enhance this mood. The description of the mansion as having an "insufferable gloom" and the atmospheric conditions during the narrator's arrival—"a dark and soundless day"—contribute significantly to the creation of the story's dark ambiance.
Furthermore, Poe's diction is carefully chosen to intensify the mood. He employs words like "melancholy," "pervades," and "iciness" to evoke a chilling sense of isolation and despair. The house itself, along with surrounding elements like the stagnant tarn reflecting the decaying mansion, works as a mirror to the Usher family's deterioration, symbolizing the inescapable decay of life. The narrative's tone is consistently eerie and foreboding, with pessimistic reflections on mortality and human frailty underscored by mirror images, serving to embody the fatalistic theme throughout the story.