We explored the doppelgänger motif in the"Fall of the House of Usher." Nina offered insightful examples of doubling and mirror images from the text ,and we then identified examples of the Gothic genre within the story. I then analyzed the symbolism of the doppelgänger perhaps as a battle between the rational /sane and the irrational /insane. Within this thematic possibility we then addressed how the protagonist ,a painter/musician, must struggle within his art to peer into the darker aspects of Man's nature and yet retain his sanity. We additionally examined Poe's story within the story technique noting how the embedded story reflects what is actually transpiring in the plot or how art is imitating life. Last, we examined the types of irony and why the first person narrator in the story is a good example of the unreliable narrator. Nina actively participated in class discussion on all of these ideas and kept notes on these topics. HW-Read Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and locate examples of verbal and dramatic irony,