Five Main Functions of Setting

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everything in his power to make Philip Winthrop Leave the house without Madeline, Roderick is convince the Usher name has been tainted and does not want Philip to marry her and have kids. When Roderick says “This is not a healthy place for you to be…” he uses the Mansion(setting) as an excuse to move on with his sinister plan of ending the family line once and for all. This scene is a fine example of how the setting can help reveal character.

The final and most important function of setting for in my opinion for The Fall of the House of Usher is how the Setting Acts as an Antagonist. this means that in some way the setting is conflicting with the protagonist. In the case of the movie it is a more straightforward way, the House literally tries to kill Philip on several different occasions, because it has harbored a family line of evil Ushers, and eventually became evil itself. In the first act it tries to kill him by dropping a chandelier on Philips head, and as previously mentioned before, a railing breaks almost sending him to his death after he leans on it. And in the final act of the movie, a fire all of a sudden leaps from the fire place and sets the house ablaze, the ravine in the side of the house collapses killing Roderick, Madeline and the butler Bristol. This is the best example on how the setting acts as an antagonist, because it almost all of the characters in the movie.

Setting is a very key part of a story’s plot, it can set the mood by creating Atmosphere, it can help show a person’s real intentions by revealing character, and it most importantly foil the plans of any and all characters in a story. The way the setting was used to enhance the storytelling overall making the viewing experience better, goes to show how truly important the setting and its functions are to a story.