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Grief In Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

Decent Essays

It is nearly impossible to go through life without losing a loved one. The overall experience is traumatic. As horrible as it sounds, it is necessary to move on after the loss of a loved one. Failure to receive closure and focusing on the grief of loss can be detrimental to one’s mental health. In fact, between twenty and thirty percent of 27,534 people surveyed said that the “unexpected death of the loved one” (Wood) was the most traumatic experience they had. Gothic poetry had this figured out many years before this study was published. Edgar Allan Poe's use of various literary devices in "The Raven" allows for the framing of the poem’s message: those who continue to dwell on tragic events of the past will only continue to feel sorrow. The first, and most obvious, path to recognize the message comes from the theme. In “The Raven,” the theme is that of grief. The grief comes from the narrator’s undying love after the supposed death of his lovely Lenore. Grief is first apparent when the narrator is in a dreamlike state, imagining Lenore. The narrator begins reliving the departure of his “rare and radiant maiden” (Poe, line 11). He begins longing for tomorrow and hoping for the happiness he reads about in his books. In the poem, it becomes noticeable that the narrator is …show more content…

The Raven represents darkness and the narrator’s grief. In contrast, the “white bust of Pallas” (Gioia) represents light. The stark contrast of light and dark provide tangible evidence of the narrator’s internal struggle. He wants to find happiness as mentioned earlier, but refuses to let go of the past. Light and dark always conflict with one another; there is no light and dark together. Just like light and dark, happiness and sorrow cannot coexist. The light and happiness can only be truly revealed once the Raven flies away. In the real world, this means that the narrator must let go of the past to reveal his inner

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