What are 5 examples of gothic elements in The Fall of the House of Usher?

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most accomplished and best known Gothic writers. Gothic texts typically involve the supernatural, mystery, and strange characters and settings. Poe is excellent at creating the dark, foreboding mood that often characterizes Gothic literature. In one of his most famous stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher," Poe incorporates several of the qualities we expect to see in Gothic literature.

1. Death and decay: The setting of "The Fall of the House of Usher" is epitomized by its death and decay. The old Usher house and the surrounding environs are "dull, dark," "bleak," "shadowy," and "insufferable." The speaker calls the house a "mansion of gloom." The Usher siblings themselves are also subject to decay, especially Madeline, who is afflicted with an illness and is presumed dead at one point in the story. The house eventually crumbles and the siblings are killed in the midst of the house's demise. 

2. Strange and mysterious characters: Roderick and Madeline Usher are an odd pair. The story heavily implies that they, as is there entire family line, are products of insect, which may explain their physical problems and personality quirks. Roderick is described as excessively nervous and superstitious. Madeline has a disease that features "a gradual wasting away of the person" and symptoms that mimic death. Their relationship is also quite strange, as they seem to have a psychic connection. Roderick ends up burying Madeline prematurely, and the scene when she emerges from the grave and walks toward Roderick is one of the most horrific in all of Poe's tales.

3. Isolation: The Usher home itself is isolated, and its inhabitants do not interact with the outside world at all. It is unusual that Roderick invites the narrator to the home at all. The isolation seems to exacerbate the eccentricity and subsequent decay of the family name and home. 

4. Intense emotional reactions and/or madness: We see in Gothic literature and especially in Poe's stories the psychological deterioration of characters. Often narrators or other characters descend into madness. In this story it is not the narrator but his old friend Roderick who goes insane. As I said previously, Roderick is already nervous and superstitious, but Madeline's declining health seems to put him over the edge. His actions become increasingly erratic, until he eventually buries his sister alive. 

5. The supernatural: In many Gothic works, writers scare their characters and readers with supposedly supernatural phenomena only to later reveal the actual, reasonable explanations for seemingly strange events. "The Fall of the House of Usher" includes the premature burial of Madeline. However, at first, she appears to be actually dead. So when the narrator hears strange noises in the night and she emerges at the end of the story, it may seem like she is a ghost and then later that she has returned from the dead. It turns out that she was not dead and was merely trying to get out of the tomb. 

Again, Poe's stories are usually Gothic in style, and "The Fall of the House of Usher" is no exception. The strange story of the Usher siblings and their demise includes many of the elements typical of the Gothic genre.