Exploring Theme In The Raven

Written by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” is a famous short poem known for the dark fantasy that it portrays. From the mindset of a first person narrative, one may experience the tale through the eyes of a haunted man who is in mourning for the death of his beloved Lenore. As this man sits in his chamber, within a dark and dreary December night, a “raven of the saintly days of yore” visits him. The raven is no ordinary bird, for it is like a ghost, silent, yet it answers every inquiry the man presents in it’s own personal way. This dark and tragic tale grabs one’s attention through the rhythmic, yet melancholy verses, through the classic references, and through the dark imagery that all play a critical role within this poem.

To begin, in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven,” a man suffering over the loss of his love, Lenore, is sitting in his chamber reading when a bird keeps tapping at his door. As the bird keeps tapping, he finally decides to go open the door. As he peers out into the darkness, his loneliness engulfs him, evoking his “surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore- for the rare and radiant Maiden named Lenore,” who is “nameless [there] forevermore”(Poe 436). After that, the raven flies in and serves as a constant reminder of his torment. Despair and depression traps him in his own mind. Lenore was

In the poem “The Raven”, by Edgar Allan Poe, the speaker grieves the loss of his beloved Lenore, and through the use of different poetic techniques, Poe expresses the speaker’s feelings towards notion of death. Poe uses numerous of poetic devices throughout the poem such as similes, personification, diction, repetition, as well as tone to accurately depict the suspenseful moment of the man’s encounter with the raven. “The Raven” is one of Poe’s most famous work and it has influenced society for years. Majority of the events that took place in Poe’s had a major impact on Poe’s writing style, which primarily consisted of morbid, melancholy tones, and almost always ended or began with some beautiful lady dying. Poe is known for his genre of modern

In the first stanza, questioning from what direction the “tapping” came, he throws open the door, the narrators’ nemesis not to be found. Some other realm must be explored if he is to ascertain something about his lost love and the noise which is driving him insane. The narrator then opens the shutter, opening his soul to the outside world. To his surprise, he discovers a raven, a “beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door” (53).

The Raven can be considered a gothic poem because it has many elements that distinguish it as such. It begins "Once upon a midnight dreary..." , hence evoking the feature of darkness and night. The narrator is roused from his sleepy state by a rapping on the door, which begins to terrify him because he is wishing for Lenore, but finds nothing instead ( or rather the raven). This scene then contains the typical gothic elements of mystery, ghosts and the supernatural in the references to "silence unbroken" and "no mortals ever dared to dream before" , and terror as he refers to his beating heart.

Through the use of an un-named narrator in his poem entitled “The Raven”, Poe darkly conveys feeling understood by many: hopelessness, lost love, and death. The poem follows the un-named narrator, as he reflects on, as well as struggles with, the realization of his lost love, Lenore. Like many, he tries to detract his overwhelming feelings for Lenore by investing his time in studying books. Despite his greatest efforts, he is unsuccessful. Much to his surprise, his solitude is interrupted by an unanticipated visitor. Throughout the poem, Poe uses imagery, tone, symbolism, and rhyme as a means of conveying his overall themes of undying devotion and lingering grief.

The poem, “The Raven,” written by Edgar Allen Poe shows the deep depression and confusion that the narrator is experiencing since the death of his beloved wife. The gloomy setting of the poem predicts the visit of the Raven, whom is a sign of misfortune, darkness, and death. Throughout the poem, the narrator is continually mourning his wife, Lenore. He secretly hopes that the Raven will bring good news regarding his wife and his future; however, the Raven informs him that he will forever remain depressed. Furthermore, Poe uses setting, strong word choice, and symbolism to illustrate the Raven as the messenger of darkness and explain the narrator’s emotional state.

Lenore’s absence also furthers to another absence that mimics the human’s incapability to know and understand what is happening (Freedman). Along with darkness, Poe uses a vivid language to achieve his single effect. Poe arranges time, place, and other details rapidly and clearly. He chooses each word carefully and requires that its meaning relates to the poem as a whole. Stanza 2 enhances and distinguishes the vivid effect Poe has already made (“Edgar Allan Poe” 52). “The Raven” is narrated from a first person tone which has a tone in the language of sorrow, weariness, and self-destructive thinking (Edwards). The contradictions of the poem and also the reflections that haunt the speaker are mostly unavoidable circumstances of the language that Poe chooses. Poe uses phrases such as “dying embers,” “Midnight dreary,” and “in bleak December” to agonize and satiate the reader’s view of the setting. These carefully chosen words assume intriguing and fascinating shapes and forms in the poem. These opening pictures help draw the readers into the speaker’s deteriorating mind. The tone of the poem is appropriate and well chosen for the subject, and the rhythm is also exquisite. Poe, with this tone and rhythm, uses wild but also tender melancholy in his lines. Mr. Willis claims “It is the most effective single example of fugitive poetry ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification,

He is so upset by the loss of Lenore that it leads him to the edge of insanity. The speaker then is seen throughout the poem supposedly struggling with the raven because the raven responds with “Nevermore” which gets the speaker angry as he is struggling within himself. The speaker seems to be trying to achieve "surcease of sorrow for the lost Lenore" by burying himself in books and trying to forget about her. But the Raven seems to be a messenger from the spirit world who has been sent to the speaker’s chamber door to keep reminding him of his loss. Instead of trying to forget about Lenore, he is forced to think about her more emotionally than he had been thinking before.

Edgar Allan Poe tells the story of a bereaved man who is grieving for his lost love in the poem, “The Raven.” During a dark and gloomy night, the man hears a knock at his door. Hoping that it is Lenore, his dead lover, coming back to him, he goes to open the door. Unfortunately, he is only met with emptiness and disappointment. Shortly after, a raven flies into the room through the window and lands on the bust of Pallas. The man begins to converse with this dark and mysterious bird. In response to everything the man says, the raven repeats one dreadful word: “Nevermore.” The symbolism of the raven being connected to death, and the man’s interaction with the dark bird reveals to readers that he is going through the stages of dying.

“The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, is a poem in which the narrator is in a spell of depression likely due to the sudden and tragic death of his lover. Within the first few lines, it becomes apparent that he is missing somebody, when he says “Lenore” constantly while waiting at the door. As his wait comes to an end, he begins to hear a similar tapping sound coming from his window, once he opens the window a raven comes into his room. It is here that the narrator begins to ask the raven questions, for which he will only receive the same answer and in return increase his frustration.

The Raven tells a story of a man with much grief over this loss of his love, Lenore. As the poem opens, the narrator is trying to find peace through his books. He states, “…while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,” (862). The setting, a chamber in a house, is described in such a way that creates a very dark, almost melancholy style. The narrator, while trying to find comfort for his loss, hears a tapping at his window. As he opens the window, a raven, a long time symbol of death, flies in, and refuses to leave. Poe uses the symbol of the raven, and his repeating word of “nevermore”, to show that the narrator will never get over the loss of his love, Lenore.

The first allusion I would like to point out is the phrase ‘the night’s Plutonian shore’. This phrase comes uses it when addressing the bird. The word ‘plutonian’ is used here as an adjective, and the word is referring to Pluto, Roman god of the underworld, or in other words, hell. Hell can be directly associated with death, and even more, with an eternal suffering. Hell, according to the Roman Catholic Church, is the place where souls burn eternally once they’re dead. Therefore, ‘the night’s Plutonian shore’ is an allusion that Poe has used to convey the eternal sorrow left after a loved one’s death. Of course, it can be acknowledged that this allusion isn’t a direct or obvious connection to that, but, in fact, it is this indirect connection Poe has realized that makes the allusion so fascinating in itself. Another allusion Poe has presented in the poem is shown in these lines, these lines which I have stated before: “Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!” Here, the allusion is the word ‘nepenthe’. Nepenthe is an ancient greek word, historically a medicine for sorrow, or the so-called ‘drug of forgetfulness’. It was first described in Homer’s “Odyssey”. Here, the allusion is more direct. The narrator is literally begging the fowl for ‘this kind

The raven represents death, as the narrator compares the bird to the devil, and tells the bird to go back to hell. The narrator thinks the raven will leave, but the raven will not. “On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before”(59) “ Then the bird said, ‘Nevermore.’” (60)These quotations show that the narrator is naïve, and does not realize that the Raven has come to take him to his grave. Lenore symbolizes a lost love that will never be seen again by the narrator.

Loss and grief are two feelings that many people have experienced or that authors or musicians have explored to share with an audience. An example of one writer who achieves this is one of America’s most well-known authors and poets, Edgar Allan Poe. Poe explores and informs readers about darker topics like grief and death while captivating and immersing the audience by establishing a detailed tone throughout his poems. Published in 1845, Poe’s most famous poem, “The Raven,” delves into the dark, sullen side of humanity by telling the story of a man whose wife had passed away. Throughout the poem, the narrator hears tapping and knocking, which he suspects is his wife, on his door and window; however, a raven enters the room as a representation of the wisdom it will bring the narrator about life after death. Meanwhile, “Annabel Lee,” another one of Poe’s most famous poems reveals the more hopeful and optimistic perspective of losing a loved one. While Edgar Allan Poe uses different tones and plotlines in “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee,” both stories portray how grief and the obscurity of the afterlife can affect people.