Literary Analysis Essay on Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’

An unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that something dangerous Is likely to cause Pain or threat to one’s self. This emotion just described is fear. Edgar Allan Poe captured the imagination of people around the world with his eerie, perplexing, distressing, and unsettling poems and stories. He had a life full struggles including neglect, death, and alcoholism. On of Poe’s most famous poems, ‘The Raven’ is a mysterious one. There are many theories on what the poem symbolizes. In general, it’s about a lonely man being disturbed by noises, depressing memories of his dead wife, and a talking raven. He creates the moods of mystery, fear, and sorrow in ‘The Raven’.

To start, Edgar Allan Poe is extremely talented at creating the mood of fear. For examPle. mysteryis shown when the poem states in stanza six, ‘Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louderthan before. Surely’, said I, surely that is something at my window lattice; Let me see, then, whatthereatis,and this mystery explore’. There was an uncertain, discomforting, and continuous tapping that taunted Poe. He tries to think rationally but then is overcome with fear and his irrational imagination. An additional example of Poe creating the mood of sorrow is in stanza two, stating, ‘Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each seParate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;-vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost Lenore-For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-Nameless here for evermore’. This is demonstrating how he clearly remembers how he felt soon after Lenore’s death, remembers how much he loves her, and acknowledges her permanent death on earth. Poe is lonely and in a depressing state of mourning.

The last and final example of Poe effectively creating mood of fear is when his poem states in stanza three, ‘…the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me-filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating, Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door-Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;-This it is and nothing morc,’ ‘Fear is obviously shown because it is very unusual for someone to knock so late at night, and Poe begins to feel a thrill of terror. He keeps telling himself to be rational and that it is just a visitor, nothing else. When a person hears or sees something odd when he or she is alone, our irrational mind begins to take over and make us feel in danger.

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An Examination of the Symbolism and Theme in the Poem, The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Picture being thrown into a cave of darkness where there is little light. There is a door, but fearful of opening it, you hesitate, and the only words heard are those in your head. You’re going crazy and you’re so paranoid that you think you would be better off in a straight jacket, or dead. The cave isn’t there, either, or is it? Who’s there? Who can help you? This type of constant delusion and progressively frightening imagery comes to life through symbolism and theme in The Raven written by Edgar Allen Poe.

Using dark, figurative language, Poe asserts rhythm through context in the mood he is trying to portray with his paranoid obsession with loss. The character in this poem is directly affected by the fact that he cannot get over a haunting woman named Lenore who appears to him metaphorically, as a raven. In fact, everything that appears to him represents his compulsion for Lenore, unable to look beyond the past in this tale of ominous love and loss.

Poe uses phrases like “bleak December” and “dying ember” (Poe, 1903) near the beginning of the poem, and maintains that sense of sadness and suspense throughout the entire piece. These words and the organization that Poe uses in this internal poem are in order to guide the reader through the story of a man dealing with the loss of someone he loved that is now haunting him in the form of an imaginary talking raven.

Personification plays a large role with the pacing and descriptors used by the author. “And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain, Thrilled me-filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.” Describing the curtains as “sad” and “uncertain” are definitive ways of causing emotions from the sounds and senses the reader experiences.

When first introduced to the poem, the author begins to describe a man reading on his way to sleep, when there is a tapping at the door. From a first person point of view he describes himself as being very tired, so when the tapping occurs he is not eager to investigate the sound. After awhile, the tapping continues, and this foreshadows the idea that the main character in the story is slowly going mad. Asking “Who’s there?” the primary character becomes curious and scared simultaneously.

The main character calls out “Lenore” quietly as if the tapping were someone he once knew, coming back to torture him by mysteriously being omniscient with repeated sounds. This could also be part of a dream or all in his head, since in the beginning; he was dozing off to sleep. Once opening the door, the man finds nothing and is determined to find the reason behind the incessant tapping. Finally, the man opens his shutters to reveal a raven that perches upon his door. The raven gives the man looks that scare him into thinking it is looking into his soul. “The fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core,” is a metaphor for the feelings that this bird creates inside of him. It is not as if the man is saying that he is literally being burned, but he is figuratively feeling out of control, powerless, and threatened by the raven’s presence.

When the man tries to speak to the raven, the raven can only speak “Nevermore.” The man tries to analyze the raven so much that he smites it. Even when he tries to get away from thinking of Lenore, the man implies that he misses where she used to sit and the imprint she used to make in his chair: “On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o’er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er She shall press, ah, nevermore!”

Interestingly enough, the entire story is physically centered on a talking raven. The raven’s significance shines through in its simplicity, and yet, still manages to drive the man insane. In the first instance, the tapping (from the raven’s beak) is an indicator of the mood of madness the man is experiencing, while the second instance is the fact that the raven can only say “nevermore.” With so many questions, this drives the character even crazier as he tries to figure out who the raven is and why it cannot speak more than one word. It is puzzling as to why the man is not more baffled at the fact that a bird can speak at all, but it just further implies the purpose of the raven, and not necessarily that the raven is actually there.

It could be argued that this poem is more literal and practical than it is figurative and metaphorically symbolized. After all, birds have been known to talk (i.e. parrots, macaws), and people have been known to obsess over someone they lost, and let that make them dwell to the point of insanity. However, the colors that Poe describes in certain instances of the poem are not coincidence. There are very few colors mentioned in this poem, but there is notion of purple or violet in the “rustling curtains.” He describes the curtains moving as filling him “…with fantastic terrors never felt before.” This represents the excitement that the man feels in hearing and seeing his curtains move in accompaniment with the tapping; in hopes it is a sign his lost “angel,” Lenore. Violet is also mentioned in the cushion in which Lenore used to sit on in the man’s chair.

In the verse “But whose velvet violet lining…” when describing the imprint that Lenore will never be able to make again, Poe uses purple as a way to continue to embellish on Lenore’s “royal” presence. Purple can also signify extravagance, mystery, and magic, all of which is present in this poem. It could also be argued that this is not a hidden “love and lost” story, but just a sad and creepy one about a man being driven to insanity from his own thoughts and a raven. However, that was not Poe’s intention here.

In lines 94-95, Poe writes of the character describing Lenore as “radiant,” and “sainted,” as if to say that Lenore is not a real human being at all anymore, but a spirit or presence that he longs for and cannot escape from forgetting to love. In earlier implications (for instance the “chair” reference) Lenore was someone the man remembers fondly and readers are encapsulated by the constant mention of Lenore, who once was, and now is “nevermore.”

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The Biography of Edgar Allan Poe and the Imagery, Structure, and Symbolism of His Poem The Raven

It is late one night one December evening, there was a man sitting in his room reading while nodding off all while trying to forget the love of his life Lenore. He then hears someone or something knocking on the door. He apologizes to the “visitor” he thinks is outside, and opens the door and finds no one is there. This scares him but he collects himself and agrees that it was just the wind on the window. So he goes to open the window and when he does a raven flies in. the raven just sits on a bust above the door and our narrators first thought is to speak to the bird. He asked the bird its name and the bird responds with “Nevermore.” Surprised the man then continues to ask questions; unfortunately the bird only says “Nevermore.” The bird never changes his answer as the speaker asks personal questions and the speaker goes insane.

Some of the imagery used in this poem is, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore;” the midnight dreary almost makes you visualize a gloomy dark midnight. (1-2) Poe’s ability to make you visualize what is happening in the story or poem is uncanny. “The Raven” does not truly follow a rhyme scheme; the poem is written in open form because it has no set rhyme scheme or rhythm.

Poe never really followed rules of poetry he night have done it occasionally but mostly his work was done in open form. Poe’s tone is depressed, insane or grieving. “Sorrow for the lost Lenore” this quote proves that the character is depressed and I believe that the man in the story is Poe, therefore, his tone could be grief. The Raven is a symbol for death, and I also think that it is a symbol for Lenore. The statement “nevermore” makes me feel as if he will never see her again and the bird saying that proves that the Raven is a symbol.

Poe was born in Boston Massachusetts to Elizabeth Arnold Poe and David Poe. His parents died when he was three years old they were professional actors. He was then raised in the home of Frances Keeling Valentine Allan and her husband John Allan in Richmond Virginia.

As a child Poe’s education was watched over by his step-father, and he went to the finest schools in Boston. In 1825 he attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, but he “was forced to leave due to inadequate financial support from his step-father.”(Raven) Poe then moved back to Richmond in 1827 but left for Boston soon after. In Boston he enlisted into the army, and it was there that he published his first works, Tamerlane, and some poems. Poe was discharged in 1829, but they never really explain why he was discharged. People enjoyed his first to works greatly. After attending school in New York and Baltimore he married his cousin Virginia Clemm. Virginia fell victim to tuberculosis and died in 1847; Poe later died on October 7th 1849.

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An Analysis and Review of The Raven, a Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allen Poe wrote the poem, The Raven in January 1845 and when publication of this poem, he was met with much success. Despite having been an established author and journalist for many years, The Raven is one of his greatest poems for its structure, language, rhyme, and for the story in all.

It is a story about a young man who is grieving over the death of his love Lenore. A raven enters through the man’s window and sits on the bust of Pallas on the man’s chamber door. The man asked many questions, but the raven only gives one answer, Nevermore. The raven can only speak that single word so, each question the man asks only makes him more upset and reminds him of his loss.

While this poem is considered one of the best poems in literary history, the question is raised; why? Could it be his poetic structure, or maybe a perspective that’s never been considered? Either way, The Raven is seen as one of the best pieces of poetry ever written. In order to understand what makes The Raven a great piece, you must look at the appeals it makes. At first look, it comes across as a being an ethos based writing, the the fact that at this point in his life, Poe was already a very well known writer and poet. At a closer look however, it becomes clear that it is actually a pathos based piece. The reason being is that the story is about a man’s struggle to deal with the loss of his beloved. The poem begins and ends with this man’s focus on the loss of Lenore. It is only when the raven enters the piece that we begin to realize the man’s struggle with his loss.

Because of his sadness, the young man begins to question the reasoning of the raven’s being there, thinking the raven is a devil who came from hell to torture him. Lenore is the focus of his sorrow, and his sorrow is what leads to the story of the raven tormenting him. This sadness the man faces and the torture by the raven all play off the idea of pathos.

Poe’s vocabulary is also a very strong contributor to pathos in this piece. The language Poe uses is very forceful and upfront, allowing for the piece to be seen in the way Poe wanted to, not leaving it up to interpretation. The audience gains a better understanding behind the story, and that allows for a much stronger connection about what it really means to the man’s lost love.

Because of the highly played out emotional content, “The Raven” is able to appeal to a greater audience than Poe intended for. Poe manages to appeal to a larger audience than he expected, because of its very emotionally drawn story line.

The emotion spawns from the loss of Lenore, but also from the mental illnesses the young man goes through because of his love for her. It also appeals on a larger scale because of the poetic structure of the piece; the fact that the piece rhymes and has a very constant flow to it.

This gives the piece much more appeal for the reason that it doesn’t need to appeal in the sense of literature. He was able to create one of the best examples of poetry through the depth of his piece, showing the apartment importance of the “The Raven” in the history of literature.

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The Transformations of Tricksters and the Role of Women in The Origin of Stories and Raven and Marriage

In “The Origin of Stories,” Gaqka’s transformation is brought about by his bride. She tells him “I shall remove your clothes and take all the scars from your face and body.” She has him go through a hollow log, which completes his transformation into a handsome man with fine clothing. It’s implied that some kind of magic is involved, which symbolizes that his marriage completes his journey from boy to man. He leaves his people as an outcast but comes back to them as someone respectable.

The role of women in “The Origin of Stories” is to reaffirm Gaqka’s manhood. Gaqka is an outsider who learns to support himself without the help of his village. But he only returns when his bride insists. By transforming him into a handsome man, she’s literally responsible for his ability to return without ridicule. This metaphorically shows that he can return because he’s married. No one in his family would care for him when his parents died, but with the approval of his wife’s family, Gaqka gains status. The mother of his bride approved of him, and requested that he marry her daughter. Since Native American cultures were matrilineal, it would make sense that men receive status from women. “The Origin of Stories” demonstrates this principle.

Social status is also gained through marriage in “Raven and Marriage.” After losing his first wife, Raven emphasizes that he must “marry a woman of as high caste as [his] first wife.” He tries to intimidate the chief by saying his daughter would have “had a great name in the world.” This is untrue, since Raven has little status of his own. He seeks high status women in an attempt to change this. It’s also important that Raven loses his first wife because he hits her. His father-in-law refuses to let Raven have her back, since he broke his promise that he would “have respect for her and take care of her.”

Both “Raven and Marriage” and “Origin of the Sun Shower” feature tricksters that try to fool women into marriage. In “Origin of the Sun Shower,” the trickster is a snake that transforms himself into a human temporarily. When his true form is revealed, the village protects the girl by shooting him. Like “Raven and Marriage,” this story shows that women were highly respected in Native American society. Men were expected to treat their wives well, and both stories show the consequences for not doing so. The girl mentions that her husband “was only man-like.” He took the appearance of a man, but as a snake, he was actually a threat to his wife. Metaphorically, this implies that it was important to treat women well to be considered a man in matrilineal societies.

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The Life of Edgar Allan Poe and a Depiction of His Sad Life in His Literature The Raven and The Black Cat

Edgar Allan Poe lived quite a difficult life, and this shows through his bodies of work. His poems and short stories were based on his life. Themes such as death, suffering, loneliness, love, and guilt are found throughout his work. He used his writings as a type of therapy, which was both good and bad. His mental state was rather poor, and it is definitely reflected within his writings, especially in three of his most popular writings. One of his writings was, “The Raven.” It expressed Poe’s feelings of loneliness and love, which he experienced a lot in his life due to the deaths of people he loved. It did not stop there, in fact it continued until he died. Another one of his writings was, “The Black Cat” which expressed guilt and an inability to overcome what one has done.

Poe’s troubles began before he was born. His mother had contracted tuberculosis while she was pregnant with him, and she never fully recovered her health. Then, Poe’s father David abandoned the family when Poe was only nine months old. This left his wife, Elizabeth with three children in the 1800s, and it extremely affected all of them. The Poes’ encountered poverty and their health issues continued. Elizabeth’s health only worsened when she had to support herself and her three young children.

Elizabeth battled tuberculosis for a number of years before passing away in December of 1811. This affected Poe extremely, he even spent the entire night with his dead mother, which scarred his psyche from a very young age. According to Poe, tuberculosis was his family’s disease and it did continue to haunt him throughout his life. Poe would witness tuberculosis claim the lives of many women important to him. Following his mother’s death, Poe and his siblings were split up into foster care with different families. After dealing with abandonment issues as the result of his father’s departure, the loss of his mother to illness, and being split from his siblings, Poe’s mental state was already destroyed. Poe’s suffering, however, was not over.

Poe was lucky to be placed with a very nice family – John and Frances Allan – but unfortunately, Frances was prone to suffer from tuberculosis just like his mother did. John, however, was nothing like David. John wanted the best for Poe and tried to give him the money he needed to allow him to follow his dreams. However, when John paid for Poe to go to school, it ended up being a poor situation, leaving Poe to turn to gambling and drinking which led even further to debt.

In the 1800s, debts, especially large debts, often resulted in jail time. A person with debts had very few options but one was joining the army. The fear of not being able to pay off his debts caused Poe to join the army in 1827. Poe regretted enlisting in the army almost immediately because his first volume of poetry was published shortly thereafter. Inspired by being published, Poe turned to John for help getting discharged so that he could pursue his career in writing. John was able to help Poe with his discharge, but it changed their relationship. From then on Poe and John argued about finances until John remarried and Poe was completely cut off. Although John and Poe were able to reconcile somewhat, when John died, he left nothing in his Will to Poe.

Left on his own, Poe was lucky to find a job as an editor. However, Poe could not escape his problems with drinking and his editor’s job was at risk. Eventually, a problem with counterfeit banknotes caused Poe to lose his editor position which, in turn, caused Poe to suffer from depression. Poe’s private life also contributed to his drinking problem and depression. In 1836, Poe married his fourteen year old cousin Virginia Clemm. Their marriage was plagued with illness. Both Poe and Virginia were continuously ill, which triggered Poe to drink more heavily especially the more Virginia got sick. This made him neglect his work, and when Virginia passed away in 1847, Poe’s poems became more and more dark. Virginia’s death affected him so much so, that he was quoted saying “I shall hardly last a year longer, alone!”” (Giammarco 4).

One of Poe’s most famous poems is “The Raven”. In this poem there are themes of madness, loneliness, and love. “The Raven” takes place late in the middle of a cold December night. Awoken by a tapping sound on his window, the narrator is forced to confront himself. Alone in the dark, he speaks directly to the darkness in an effort to understand what is happening to him and why. He stands there waiting for an answer but “the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, And the only word there was spoken was the whispered word, ‘Lenore?’ This I whispered, and echo murmured back the word, ‘Lenore!’ – Merely this and nothing more” (Poe 27-30). Lenore is the narrator’s recently deceased wife. The correlation to the love Poe lost with the death of his wife is obvious but the deeper meaning is the cruel loss of love Poe felt when his mother died and the utter loneliness he feels due to that loss.

The reader is then introduced to the raven. The poem states that the raven entered and “Perched, and sat, and nothing more” (Poe 42). The only word spoken by the raven is, “Nevermore” (Poe 48). Even when the narrator mutters to himself, the raven’s response is “Nevermore” (Poe 60). Although the raven only speaks one word, it brings out the narrator’s true feelings and his inner turmoil over the love he has lost.

The themes of self-torture, loneliness and love run throughout the poem. Clearly, the narrator is Poe himself and the darkness is a reflection of his own life and mind. Shanna Dhahir wrote an enlightening article about The Raven and how it connects to Poe. Dhahir states the most meaningful connection perfectly, “The story that Poe remained with his mother’s corpse for a whole night in December 1811 has often been cited as a childhood trauma which have contributed to the emotional collapse…” (Dhahir 4). The Raven is set during the month of December; the month when his mother died. The confusion of the narrator and his search for an answer from anything, even darkness and a raven is believed to be based on what was going on inside Poe’s mind when his mother died. Poe was so young and he sat alone with her dead body for an entire night that it, of course, left a deep scar on his psyche.

Poe’s decision to have the narrator’s wife die, rather than the narrator’s mother, is also important. Poe is expressing that the feelings one experiences after losing a loved one are raw and unyielding. It does not matter if you are a child or an adult with a greater capacity to “understand” death. The pain and loneliness transcend rational thought and wound the very core of our existence. This is why Poe places his feelings caused by the loss of the two of the most important women in his life, even though there were years apart, into one poem. Dhahir explains, “The sorrow which the man in “The Raven” undergoes following the death of his beloved Lenore also has its parallel in Poe’s personal life, namely his grief over the loss of his young wife, Virginia, who like his mother, died of consumption, or what is now known as tuberculosis” (Dhahir 5).

Finally, the invasive, unrelenting and unresponsive nature of the raven speaks to Poe’s thoughts on death. Death comes uninvited into our lives, disturbs our peace, and haunts our every thought. Making matters worse, the feelings caused by death can leave a person feeling isolated and confused. The Raven reveals what is perhaps Poe’s greatest fear; being alone, truly alone and without love. This is a primal fear that I believe we all share even if we do not admit it.

One of Poe’s most famous short stories, “The Black Cat” centers on guilt. The story begins with the narrator explaining that he is scheduled to die the next day but refusing to why or the background for his statements. The narrator discusses his cat; his rather large, beautiful, solid black cat. The cat is called Pluto. The narrator and the cat are best friends the cat follows him everywhere. However, the narrator is an alcoholic who gets very angry at everyone. His anger and rage starts grow out of control and he starts to mistreat his wife and their other animals. The narrator, however, spares Pluto from his tantrums. But addiction to alcohol and uncontrolled anger are like a spark and a dry forest; a deadly combination.

One night the narrator comes home extremely drunk and believes that Pluto (a cat) is ignoring him. Annoyed, the narrator grabs Pluto and, in self-defense, Pluto bites him. The narrator becomes enraged and cuts out one of Pluto’s eyes. After a night of rest, the narrator is sober and is horrified by what he did to Pluto but not enough to make him stop drinking. THe narrator rationalizes his actions and blames Pluto for making the narrator act. The close bond between Pluto and the narrator is broken and forever changed. Now, Pluto avoids the man all the time.

Irrationally, the narrator refuses to recognize the consequences of his own actions and, instead of being remorseful, he gets irritated by Pluto’s behavior. Again seized by anger, the narrator punishes Pluto by hanging the cat’s food from a tree. That same night the house burns down. Although the narrator’s family survives, he thinks that Pluto died in the fire. This is when Poe introduces the reader to guilt.

A month after the fire, the narrator sees a cat that is so similar to Pluto, but this one has a white patch on his chest. This cat then follows him home and the narrator wants to like the cat but his feelings of guilt for Pluto give him pause. Eventually, the guilt causes the narrator to hate the “new” cat. But the similarities, down to the missing eye, makes the narrator fear the cat. The cat is a direct reminder of his crime against Pluto to him. Anger again gets the better of the narrator and he attempts to kill the cat with an axe. Unfortunately the wife tries to get in the middle of it and the man ends up killing his wife. He then hides the body behind a wall in the basement.

After this happens the cat goes missing for three days but the man does not lose sleep over the cat missing. However on the fourth day of the cat missing the police show up asking questions about the disappearance of his wife. As they are investigating the house the man sells himself out by checking on the wall he rebuilt after hiding his dead wife behind it. He ends up tapping on the wall and it sounds hollow giving himself away right to the police.

This story is really deep when one thinks about it. This story focuses on the fact that the narrator is a drunk. When one is drunk they are a different person, which some believe reflect upon Poe’s own life. The story shows that drunk actions are really the true thoughts of a sober person. Robert Shulman wrote an article on Poe and the powers of the mind. Robert brings a up a very smart point to what Poe expresses through the story. He states, “Poe also dramatizes his insights into the unconscious tendency of the mind to protect itself by rigidly suppressing threatening inner forces” (Shulman 155). Expressing the fact that although the mind might come up with thoughts that are completely gruesome our body tries to deny that type of mindset.

One’s mind even tries to convince itself that even when one does a horrible action is reasoned for. This leaves one uneasy and struggling with the act that one has done. When one drinks the subconscious really comes to life. After letting out the thoughts of the subconscious it does not allow one to forget what they have done and the guilt grows so much that one ends up telling what one did. This story seems to reflect Poe’s view of himself that when he drinks he acts out, and that it has destroyed his own psyche more than it already was. The guilt eats up one’s inside until it becomes too much that the truth has to come out.

When looking at Edgar Allan Poe’s works, one thing is constant. It is dark. It is meant scare the reader because it puts that person into the mind of someone demented and damaged. Considering everything that Poe went through – whether it be the loss of his mother or his own experiences with alcohol or depression – it is very reasonable to believe that he has inserted himself into these characters. Through each word he’s written, and every deranged plot point he has created, he gave his readers a piece of his own private life. This is true with a lot of artists. They express themselves through their work. Their work is the artistic embodiment of themselves as human beings. Through “The Raven” and “The Black Cat” and so many other works Poe published, his following is able to see what type of person he was, and it is a sad and depressing picture, indeed.

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An Analysis of the Themes of Pain and Grief in The Tell Tale Heart and The Raven

Pain, grief, and regrets are all things one cannot forget about. Similarly, in Edgar Allan Poe’s fictional works of literature, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Raven,” pain, grief, and regrets do not go away. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” there is an insane narrator who decides to take the life of an old man. The reason behind the murder is because of the old man’s “vulture” looking eye (Poe 355). The guilt he feels after murdering the old man leads him to admit his crime. While, in “The Raven,” there is a scholar, who grieves over his lost Lenore. He regrets taking her for granted until she passes away. After all the pain the speaker is going through, a Raven comes and adds more depression and darkness in his life. Henceforth, the desolation envelops the speaker. Throughout “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe exemplifies allusion and symbolism to create an effective story and poem.

To begin, Poe creates adequate pieces of literature by utilizing allusion, or a reference of something in the passage to another well-known figure. In “The Raven,” when a Raven is already inside the speaker’s house, it is “Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above [the narrator’s] chamber door” (Poe 41). The Raven lands on a bust of Pallas, alluding to the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena. Since the speaker has a statue of Pallas, it indirectly characterizes him as a scholar. In addition, the Raven repeats the word “Nevermore” throughout the poem; later on, the speaker says, “Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night’s Plutonian shore”” (Poe 47).

The Plutonian shore alludes to Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld. Such precision of diction causes the allusions to become powerful to the overall meaning behind the poem. To continue, in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator is about to murder the old man, and ” [he] had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot” (Poe 357). The narrator refers to the old man’s eye as “the damned spot”, which alludes to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

In Shakespeare’s play, one of Lady Macbeth’s most prominent lines are, “Out, damned spot”. This is Lady Macbeth’s way of getting rid of her guilt for murdering King Duncan. Similarly, the narrator in “The Tell- Tale Heart,” attempts to get rid of his guilt, that is tormenting him, for killing the old man. Both characters suffer from delusions, but unlike Lady Macbeth, the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” has gone mad long before committing the murder. This directly characterizes the narrator as preposterous. Poe supplies allusions throughout his works to make them deeper, and more valuable.

Continuing, Poe also uses symbolism, or using something or someone to represent an idea, to create compelling stories and poems. In “The Raven,” a Raven vexes the speaker with its nonsense, but, “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’…With such name as, ‘Nevermore.”” (Poe 48, 54). A Raven is typically seen as an omen of death, bad luck, or even evil. The Raven symbolizes the speaker’s depression and grief over his lost love, Lenore. Adding on, the word “Nevermore,” that repeats throughout the story, is also the Raven’s name, for it also represents Lenore will never come back. Usage of the term, “Nevermore” darkens the already depressing mood of the entire poem.

In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” when the narrator is describing his fear, he is histrionic as many will say, for he quotes, “One of his eyes bled that of a vulture… Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold… I made up my mind to take the life of the old man and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 355). Because of the “vulture” looking eye of the old man’s, the narrator is frightened to the point of insanity. The eye is the object that causes an internal conflict within the narrator. The narrator is deciding whether to commit his crime to the police or suffer from the beating dead man’s heart. When the police arrive because someone hears a deafening scream at night, the narrator soon starts hearing a noise, and soon “find[s] [out] that the noise was not within [his] ears…but the noise steadily increased… It is the beating of [the old man’s] hideous heart!” (Poe 359).

The beating of the dead man’s heart symbolizes the narrator’s guilt for killing the old man. Additionally, the beating heart can also create the overall theme in the story: Guilt will always come back after committing wrongdoings. The adoption of symbolism deepens the meaning behind Poe’s pieces of literature.

The implementation of allusion and symbolism throughout “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Raven,” further enhances Poe’s short stories and poems. Allusions to Greek mythology and Shakespeare amplifies the meaning behind each of his stories and poems. His usage of symbolism reveals the fear and guilt in “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Poe’s subtle incorporation of Shakespearean literature and talent at ending stories on constant cliffhangers help him construct riveting short stories.

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