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The Five Stages of Grief in Edgar Allan Poe's Poem, The Raven

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Grief is one emotion that everyone is familiar with. One of the reasons why people grieve is because it is a reaction to the loss of a loved one, a family member, or a close friend, however, everyone deals with grief differently. When a person is grieving he/she goes through five stages: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It can take very long for someone to reach acceptance. Sometimes, people don’t go through all five of the stages. There is one man who practically wrote the definition of grief, Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe wrote a substantial amount of poems, and a majority of them have to do with the death of a young woman and their loved ones left behind. What makes Edgar Allan Poe’s writing so significant is that the men grieving usually fall into madness. “The Raven” is dark, depressing, and sends off an eerie vibe. Poe wrote a poem of this nature because, like most writers, he wrote what he was feeling. Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven” happens to be his most popular poem. There are two characters in this poem: a Raven and the narrator. The narrator is telling the story of when he had just lost the love of his life, Lenore. Right away the reader finds out it is a dark, cold night. He comes off as a lonely grieve-stricken man. He is reading a book of folklore in the middle of the night until he is able to sleep, and “surcease the sorrow” (st 2, l 4) as he hopes that his pain will end. In stanza 2 line 1 we find out that it is the month of

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