preview

Themes Of The Raven

Decent Essays

Edgar Alan Poe’s poem “ The Raven,” major themes are: loneliness, paranoia and morning. These themes are having a dialogue with each other. Loneliness, sends the author of this poem into paranoia and fear. There is also a deep internal struggle to establish reality over the imagination. The language of the poem contemplates with the author’s struggle, “ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,/ Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before.(trans.Poe, 5.1-2). The author is trying to get an emotional hold on himself. The ending of each stanza is ended with evermore, Lenore, and nevermore. The author is having a dialogue with himself, thinking he is speaking to a Raven. When each stanza ends, with nothing more and nevermore, because he is speaking to no one, but can not help himself to continue the conversion with the Raven. The words in this poem have a spiral that ends with each verse, it gains speed and momentum towards the end of each stanza. Poe wrote the raven was perched on a bust of the Roman Goddess, Pallas. Pallas is the Goddess of wisdom. This becomes symbolic that the Raven can see his intentions, and that wisdom is gazing into the author’s eyes, “On the allied bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;/ And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,/ And the lamplight o’ver him streaming throes his shadows on the floor;/ And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor;” (trans.Poe, 18. 2-4). Poe described the raven as a demonic creature, which could be seen as death attempting to make it’s call on the author, “ Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore-/ Tell me what lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!,” (trans. Poe, 8.4-5). Poe capitalized the words: Night, Disaster and Hope in the stanzas, the narrator is stunned in his room, while it appeared to him that he had a fight between Heaven and Hell in front of his eyes. The Raven appears like the messenger of hell that is attempting to drag the narrator down into it. Loneliness is a state of hell. The author’s mind is dragging him across the room that he is in. His memory and imagination is torturing him, and he cannot

Get Access