In "The Fall of the House of Usher" Poe explores such topics as incest, terminal illness, mental breakdown, and death. As is typical of the gothic genre, the story is set in a dark, medieval castle, and uses a first-person narrator to introduce a sense of dread and terror in the reader. Visual and aural imagery are key elements in "The Fall of the House of Usher" and give the reader a noteworthy experience. Gothic imagery is the exceptional key in the story and helps set the tone for the entire tale. In this short story, a man will visit a childhood friend who is suffering from a strange illness. Strange events will occur under his host's mansion. In this narrative, Poe uses conventions of gothic literature to push the story's protagonists into a state of constant distress of the mind and eventually drive them into madness. Gothic conventions such as the gothic setting, death and the supernatural will slowly bring fear upon his characters.