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Annabel Lee Mood

Decent Essays

Edgar Allen Poe is a talented and well-known American author. He has written many different short stories and poems, which are now considered to be classics. The theme of his poem “Annabel Lee” is ‘You need to let go of your grief and move on or it will consume you’. Three different literary elements that help to emphasize the theme are the imagery, mood, and repetition found in the poem. Imagery found in the poem help to emphasize the theme. In the beginning of the poem Poe describes the setting as “In a kingdom by the sea”. The reader imagines a calm and happy place. “But we loved with a love that was more than love”. The description of their romance also helps to create a happy image in the reader’s mind. The imagery of the setting helps to emphasize a calm and happy mood. However, later in the poem imagery helps to make a darker and creepier mood. For example, “cold winds”, “In her tomb by the sounding sea”, and “shut her up in …show more content…

In the first stanza of the poem Poe writes, “In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom they may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me”. The mood is uncharacteristically optimistic and happy for Poe. But, by the fourth stanza we see the mood change from happy to quite creepy. “That the wind came out a cloud at night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee”. The mood stays the same for a couple more stanzas, but, at the final stanza, it goes from creepy to downright dark and disturbing. “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling-my darling- my life and my bride In her sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea”. The mood goes from happy to dark, similarly to what happens to the narrator. The mood symbolizes the narrator’s grief over Annabel Lee and what it does to him because he can’t move on. He lets it take over his life and he slowly goes

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