Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, A crumbling manor, its walls stained and fissured as if weeping, stands alone amid a blighted landscape. Through shattered panes, faint candlelight reveals a study where a sickly figure slumps before a dying fire. An oppressive aura of melancholy and dread seems to emanate from the very stones, as if the house itself is a living malaise consuming all within its bounds. Madness lurks in the shadows, a creeping decay that blurs the lines between the physical and psychological ruin amidst the all-pervading sense of inescapable doom