The settings in each of these 11 tales are crafted with careful detail to put the reader off-balance. These settings include gothic ancestral manor homes, cargo ships waylaid by mysterious storms, old abbeys, the hallowed halls of educational institutions, the isolated countryside, and a few locations on the European Continent (Paris, Rome, etc.). With each setting, Poe deliberately builds an eerie sense of disquiet that destabilizes the reader. These locations are often very old or bear some sort of religious or spiritual connection (often they are a combination of these three), and this transports the reader to another dimension where they may be properly invested and horrified in turn.
One of the key facets of gothic literature is a particular attention to architecture and space and their places within narratives. Oftentimes the settings in these stories can take on almost sentient qualities, influencing the progression of the tales just as much as any of the characters themselves (examples include: "The Tell-Tale Heart," “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Pit and the Pendulum”). The House of Usher in “The Fall of the House of Usher” deserves particular consideration for its iconic craftsmanship. The sentient ties between the house and the family perfectly encapsulate the quintessential eeriness that frequently defines the setting of gothic horror stories.
