The Bells By Edgar Allan Poe

There are a lot of difference between Poe's "The Bells" to Carrie Underwood's song "Church Bells". The first difference is that “The Bells” poem has a lot of symbolism of bells as silver bells, golden bells, iron bells and breeze bells but “ Church Bells” had only one symbolism of bells which were church wedding bells which they are a clue of gaiety and joyful. “The Bells” poem had a creepy, scary, joyful meanings, that means not only one meaning. The imagery were the same at some points in both of them like the sound. For instance (To the swinging and the ringing” II 17) and ( She could hear those church bells ringing, ringing III 1).

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.

Poe uses situational irony in section two to disguise the true horror that the poem holds, giving the later sections greater influence. During the wedding, the speaker observes that the radiant sound of the golden bells “dwells / on the future!...tells / of the rapture that impels”,

Bells, in poetry they are known to be haunting memories or sometimes dreadful thoughts of the past. In the poem The Bells by Anne Sexton, if you didn’t understand the meaning of bells in poetry, the true message of this poem may be missed. With this in mind, if you look a little deeper into the poem, the meaning of the poem will come into view. However, another key detail that is necessary to know is that through Anne’s life she was depressed, approximately all of her poems had dark thoughts and had a woman being a main subject in a crisis. In the poem The Bells, the theme, style, and speaker of the poem is clear to see with the knowledge that is provided above.

Poe illustrates the mood by using imagery to explain the mysterious settings of the writings. When the bells “scream out their affright” (The Bells) it appeals to our sense of sound. Poe continuously uses the same type of imagery, giving the poem power. Using the words in this way brings the poem alive. The reader hears the “throbbing of the bells” (The Bells) instead of just reading the words.

“The Raven” is a fictional poem written by Edgar Allan Poe in which the audience witnesses the narrator’s gradual change from a weary scholar to grieving lover. While falling asleep, he suddenly hears a tap at his chamber door. In alarm, the scholar tries to reason with himself and explain away the soft tapping. Eventually, he gains courage, opens the door, and finds it void of anyone. The narrator immediately wonders if it is perhaps his lost love, Lenore waiting for him, yet the only answer to his inquiry is his echoing voice. However, as he shuts the door, he hears a gentle tapping again, opens a window, and a raven enters. Poe’s use of a raven cannot be a coincidence. According to Gregory McNamee,

Is there anything that someone could do to you that would cause you to commit murder? Could you get away with it? Montresor is the murderous narrator who has committed the perfect murder in just such a tale, “The Cask of Amontillado.” Montresor plots and kills an unwary friend/foe during carnival time for motives that are unclear. The author of this tale, Edgar Allan Poe, influenced by his somewhat tragic life and one of the most influential Gothic writers, uses symbolism and irony to show the multitude of complicated motives of the narrator in his famous horror story.

This shows that Edgar Allan Poe uses this ominous sound to create suspense and uneasiness within the reader by having the cheerful bells contrast the eerie environment to create a dark type of irony. All in all, Poe uses these examples of imagery to greatly enhance the effect of discomfort, which can also be seen by the mood of the short

“I smiled, for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream.” The Tell Tale Heart is one of Edger Allan Poe’s most famous and creepiest stories. The premise of this gothic short story is that a man’s own insanity gives him away as a murderer. By using the narrators own thoughts as the story Poe displays the mental instability and the unique way of creating a gothic fiction. While other stories written by Poe reflect this same gothic structure and questionable sanity, this story has a unique way of making the reader walk away from the story with an uncomfortable feeling. The mental struggles the narrator faces might as well reflect the depression and other psychological issues Edgar Allan Poe was confronted with in his own life.

Edgar Allan Poe’s narrator in “The Black Cat” describes himself as a lover of animals and a man with a kind heart. But he uses his animals and alcoholism as an excuse for his perverse behavior. However, Poe drops hints though out the narrative to tell a different story. His violence towards animals tells the story of an irrational man who weeps while hanging his cat. Therefore, Poe employs the narrator to show the human tendency to use scapegoats to shift blame for the wrong thing we do.

“The Bells” is no exception. The substance the bells are made of carry significance in conveying the mood of the poem; silver, gold, and iron. Silver, in the fist stanza, is symbolic of innocence, and purity, as well as celebration. It insinuates the beginning of life, when a child is untainted by the world, and lives in simplistic happiness. Silver bells are often associated with Santa Clause and Christmas, which are both major parts in childhood further enforcing the sense of youth in the first stanza.

The death of a loved one leaves a void in a person. The narrator of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe experiences this void after the loss of his love Lenore. The narrator is isolated from the world until a raven appears before him. The events and dialogue that follow are what makes The Raven such a legendary piece of literature. The gothic poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is an example of repetition and shift.

I think the poet created a four-part poem about bells because each of the bells in the four parts represents a different stage in your life. Every time the bell rings the speaker expresses the ideas in each part of the poem, he is older and there is a different tone in the poem. In the first part, the speaker hears "the sledges with the bells" and "the jingling and the tinkling of the bells." The mood is very happy and makes you think of a very warm and cozy winter. In the second part, the speaker hears "mellow wedding bells" and the rhyming and the chiming of the bells." The mood is still hopeful and joyful, but not a much as the first part. The speaker is also no longer in his childhood, he is in his young adulthood. Next, in the third part of the poem, the speaker hears "loud alarum bells" and the "clamor and the clanging of the bells." In this stanza, he is probably in his late adulthood, and he is horrified and in immediate danger because of a fire that is getting higher and higher. This isn't a very happy tone and it is terrifying. This also shows that he is about to die. Finally, in the last stanza, the speaker hears "tolling of the bells" and "the moaning and the groaning of the bells." The bells are throbbing because someone has died. Every time you hear that bell you stop and think about death and your life. This has a very negative tone and it isn't a joyful feeling now.

In 1844, Edgar Allen Poe published one of his most famous poems “The Raven.” “The Raven” is about a man reading books trying to keep his mind off a woman named Lenore he loved that died. Later, while he is napping, he wakes up from a knocking on the door. He gets up and opens the door of his chamber, but no one is there. He goes to his window then opens the shutters. A raven flies right in and sits on a bust of Pallas, goddess of wisdom, on top of his chamber door. The narrator sits there asking the raven questions that he already knows the answer to, and the raven answers with the word “Nevermore”. The more questions he asks, the angrier he gets at the raven. “The Raven” was written by Edgar Allen Poe in a fiction based poem, but it might be about his own life. During the period that Poe was lonely, he missed his biological mother that he loved so much. He kept dreaming about her. This is similar to the way the narrator misses Lenore in the poem. “The Raven” is in some ways comparable to Edgar Allan Poe’s life.

Edgar Allan Poe would often unite elements of dreadfulness, love, and imagined aspects in his poems settings to help produce a Gothic atmosphere within his pieces. As illustrated by Poe in ”The City in the Sea" the setting takes place in an isolated city in the distant west that has no clear origins or particular placement in reality, therefore contributing a dreamy but dreary with a hint of gloomy feeling to the poem. Alternatively, "The Raven" uses the setting of a monotonous room at night, whereas the shadowy corridor outside the room and the rustling of curtains suggest the presence of a paranormal or supernatural entity in the chamber. Poe establishes the scenery as a mood that is receptive to the tensions of horror and fear within his works.