The atmosphere of the whole story is very dark It is expressed also by the description of the weather (dull, dark and soundless autumn, clouds hung oppressively low…). The respective scenes of the story are connected together, one scene is prepared by the previous. The relation between the house and the family is very strong. The ancestors of Roderick and Madeline are present in every stone of the house. What can be said about the house could be said about the family as well. When the last members of the family die the house falls into the ruins. The end of the Ushers family is also the end of their house. The story is producing very dark and melancholic mood.
The second story, we want to mention and describe, is called I want to know why. Sherwood Anderson wrote it. Because of the lack of the place the content of this story will be discussed only very briefly here. Some nice details of this story are not going to be described here. That’s why we recommend to read this story in the anthology mentioned in the note at the end of the essay. This story is about four boys from Beckersville in Kentucky. They liked horse races very much. And they wanted to see some important race far from their town. So they decided to run away from home. When they came into Saratoga, where the race took place, some nigger gave them something to eat and showed them some place to sleep. The boy, who is telling this, story expressed a good attitude to this “nigger” cook. All the boys, but especially this boy-narrator has a very good relation to the horses. He wanted to be a jockey, but he grew too big. He can feel what the horse is thinking and he gets some special felling, when watching the horse that is going to win the race. So he is able to predict the winner of the race. At that race in Saratoga the boy knows the horse that is going to win, too. When he meets the trainer of the horse, they both knew that the horse is going to win. The boy found this out when they, he and the trainer, looked at each other. The boy was feeling some special sympathy toward this trainer, because also he knew that the horse is going to win. And the horse really won. In the evening this boy wants to be near to this trainer who looks so great to him. But he sees the trainer drunk, going to a public house and cheating and kissing with a “bad woman”. His illusions and his ideal are destroyed. The boys are going home. But this boy never tells to anybody about his disappointment. Sherwood Andreson chose a first-person narration for this story. The narrator is the maim character in the story, a fifteen years old boy.