Study Guide:
The Devil and Tom Walker
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Raven
1. What is the “one condition which need not be mentioned, being generally understood in all cases
where the Devil grants favors”? p. 248
2. The opening descriptions of the forest suggest that what Tom will find there will be: dull and
depressing or treacherous and malignant?
3. In what way is Tom Walker a one-dimensional character? What does he symbolize?
4. What is an omniscient narrator?
5. The story implies that God expresses His disapproval of humans” sins by _________. P. 243
6. A main lesson of this story is that _____ and mean-spiritedness leads to misery.
7. What seems to be Tom’s prime motivation in agreeing to the Devil’s terms?
8. What is the significance of Tom’s finding most of the tall trees in the forest each “marked with the
name of some great man of the colony”?
9. Which of the following words best describes the single effect created by the opening description of
the house in “The Fall of the House of Usher”? sadness, terror or wariness?
10. After the narrator arrives, Roderick reveals that his present state stems largely from what?
11. What is a central theme of “The Fall of the House of Usher”? A person cut off from the _____ can fall
prey to irrational _____ and mental _____.
12. Which detail early in “The Fall of the House of Usher” most clearly foreshadows, or hists at, the
story’s ending?
13. Why does the narrator “start” when Roderick Usher mentions “the gradual yet certain condensation
of an atmosphere…about the waters and the walls” of the House of Usher?
14. To what might the title “The Fall of the House of Usher “ refer? List several
15. What does the speaker in “The Raven” first feel when he first thinks that Lenore may be at his door?
Terror and hope or confusion and melancholy?
16. When the speaker describes Lenore as “nameless here for evermore” what does he mean?
17. What is a central theme of “The Raven”? loss of love causes bitterness; or grief can cause
hallucinations; or isolation can lead to madness?