The end of the 18th century marked the beginning of a new genre of literature in America; American Gothic. Already a popular genre in Europe, this new literary movement in America emerged to create a rather stark contrast to the foundations of the Enlightenment on which America was born. Instead of concerning subjects of freedom and “pursuit of happiness”; Key elements of the American dream, American Gothic literature “embodies and gives voice to the dark nightmare that is the other side of the ‘American dream’” (Savoy, 2003, p. 167). Although it contains many similar elements to its European counterpart, American Gothic has its own distinct characteristics that make it "particularly American". These characteristics include the setting, language, style, and essentially the subject matter of the text which concerns American history and fears. Throughout this essay, I will examine those “particularly American” elements evident in Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. A work of Gothic fiction, whether American or European, can be identified by specific common characteristics of the genre. A Gothic tale usually took place in an archaic building. In European Gothic fiction, this building would typically have been a castle, abbey, palace, or monastery, most of which are of Gothic architecture. As the genre grew and spread, the setting changed with the country, as America did not have the castles and abbeys that were important in Europe at that time, settings such as houses, Forests and ancient buildings have been used in American Gothic literature. Gothic literature is too concerned with the past, whether it is the past of a country, a race, or a family. The setting and the anxieties of the past are linked; often in gothic literature it is common...... middle of paper ......e. Typical of Gothic writing, the secrets of the Usher family are hinted at but never completely revealed by the author. In conclusion, American Gothic literature contains the common Gothic traits, as well as its own distinct characteristics that make it distinctively "American." Particularly American characteristics evident in Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher included setting the tale in a dilapidated house in order to adapt the Gothic elements to the American landscape. Poe used language, distinctive symbolism, and rhetorical techniques of metaphors and personification in order to show the connection between space and its inhabitant (Al-Mahdawi, 2002, p. 2), which was relatively new in Gothic American. And finally, the concepts Poe explored were specific to America and the American people, with the fear and desires of the world being altered to suit America..