ordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. (Poe 198) Poe also manages to describe his more unpopular personality traits when he refers to himself as a lost drunkard or the irreclaimable eater of opium (198). Poe also used his memory of past events and places to set the backdrop for his pieces of literature. In The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe uses his Gothic home as the backdrop and his family as its characters. Poe often drew upon his memory for his settings, as in The Fall of the House of Usher, which concerns the fate of a decayed aristocratic family and it moldering Gothic mansion (Buranelli 28). Poe knew the feelings that came to a person when confronted with a relic from their unpleasant past and with that knowledge he could write a story appealing to readers. Poe also used The Fall of the House of Usher to portray loved ones, such as his mother, to the reader. He could never bear to take about his mom frequently, because of the pain it put on his heart. To compensate for this he portrayed her through the guise of Lady Madeline (Buranelli 35). Lady Madeline was Ushers mysterious sister who in the end died without warning or reason. Poe also wrote a sonnet called To My Mother that appeared to be for his mother, but was indeed for his mother-in-law. Along with putting his mother in his tales, Poe also portrayed his lifes greatest love, Virginia Clemm. Virginia inspired such pieces as Eleanora and Annabel Lee (Buranelli 38). I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea; but we loved with a love that was more than loveI and my Annabel Lee; with a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabel Lee; so that her highborn kinsman came and bore her away from me, to shut her up in a sepulchre in this kingdom by the s...
