Essay rough draft/ outline

This is my rough draft as it stands now... it's still half an outline, as I got a bit stuck, but here it is anyway. I decided to do prompt number one.

Prompt #1: First draft

In both the stories, “The Oblong Box” and “The Fall of the house of Usher”, the narrators seem to be very much affected by the events that they describe. By contrast, the narrator’s state of mind throughout the story directly affects the depictions of the events. This is illustrated several times in the course of both stories.
In “The Oblong Box”, the narrator takes the form of another passenger of the ship, and friend to the main character. Already we have a bias through the narrator’s relationship to Cornelius Wyatt, who had been a peer of his at University. The narrator, to begin with, seems like a curious sort of man, as he checks the passenger lists to see who else is on the ship. He remarks in the second paragraph of the story, “…I was rejoiced to see that of Mr. Cornelius Wyatt, a young artist, for whom I entertained feelings of warm friendship.” In this quote, we have established an opinion of Wyatt through the narrator’s feelings for them.
The narrator goes on to describe his friend more fully in the next passage, “He had the ordinary temperament of genius, and was a compound of misanthropy, sensibility, and enthusiasm. To these qualities he united the warmest and truest heart which ever beat in a human bosom.”
Already, the narrator is setting up this man to be a sympathetic character. This first description is what will carry through the rest of the story. The narrator cares for this man, and therefore, the reader cares about him as well.
As the story continues, the beginnings of the plot become apparent in the fact that Wyatt was apparently traveling with three other persons, but only three staterooms were assigned to his party. This gets the narrator thinking. On the first page, he is already pondering over the mystery that will consume him almost to the end of the piece…. (cont)
-Quote: “I could not comprehend why there were three state-rooms for these four persons...” (Curiosity on part of narrator)
-Everything seen through narrator’s eyes, and opinions… we can form no unbiased feelings of our own on these characters with the biased information given. (pg 433, description of Mrs. Wyatt, Pg 435, rant about friend’s wife.)
-Curiosity example: Oblong box introduction, pg 433
-Pg 443 Increasing obsession with the box… fixation on that and not other goings on about the ship. We don’t know other events because the narrator is obsessed.
-His feelings affect the overall feeling of the piece, moods-piece mood.
-Pg 438, description of shipwreck- Seen from narrator’s eyes, don’t know what Wyatt is feeling. Mystery is solved,

House of Usher--
-Introduction of house of usher and narrator.
-First sentence, pg 378- sampling of mood of piece.
-Describe word-use and how that betrays the narrator’s state of mind about the house. Look at house descriptions.
-Metaphor of house/Roderick’s mind, pg 379
-”Although as boys….” quote, pg 379
-Degrading relationship between Roderick and Narrator…. Pg 380
-Sickness/moldering house metaphor.
“Upon my entrance, Usher…” quote, pg 381
-describe how narrator’s overall opinion colors reader’s view of Roderick and his sister

Closing paragraph-
-Describe how point of view decides how readers view events
-Closing statement/restatement of ‘purpose’/ main paragraph