The setting of this story may be its most unforgettable element. What are some of its most horrible details?

The narrator describes
the "few moments" he spends in "delirious horror," in which he sees the
"soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which enwrapped the walls of
the apartment." Further, he sees the "seven tall candles upon the table" which
seem, at first, like charitable angels who are there to save him, but then they become
"meaningless spectres, with heads of flame." It is bad enough when the narrator
describes the lips of his judges as "thin even to grotesqueness" and
"writh[ing]" as they speak his fate, but to be completely surrounded by blackboth from
the drapes and from the judges's robesand to watch the bright and inspiring candles turn into
devils from which he can anticipate no mercy makes this scene seem completely
horrible.

Later, in his dungeon, the narrator describes how his "worst
thoughts . . . were confirmed" by the "blackness of eternal night" that
encompassed him. He can hardly breathe...