One of the most common ways readers approach Guy de Maupassant’s The Hand is to ask a single question: Was the hand alive? Was it supernatural? Was it psychological? Was it a hallucination? A curse? A vendetta returned from the grave? Those questions are understandable. They are also beside the point. Maupassant, through his third-person […]
Silence in The Fall of the House of Usher is usually treated as atmosphere. The house is quiet. The corridors are hushed. The characters speak softly. The stillness feels oppressive, funereal, Gothic.
