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'A Literary Analysis Of Edgar Allen Poe's Ligeia'

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Edgar Allan Poe, the self-proclaimed poet brought to us a unique technique achieved through his literature that differentiates him from the rest of the famous writers that lived during his era. In his famous story titled “Ligeia” we see how his distinctive technique in writing infuses with the touch of reality and fantasy as well as the gothic side that leaves us pondering whether the story indeed occurred or if it was a simple dream brought up through the narrator. Through his words the story takes shape, and only he can dictate and describe what the women he is involved with mean to him. The narrator that is in the story confesses on multiple occasions to being under the influence of the drug opium. “Now, then, did my spirit fully and freely burn with more than all the fires of her own. In the excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered in the …show more content…

She is a woman who he finds truly beautiful and represents herself as a perfect match for the narrator because she shares the same outlook on life as he did, she was the darkness within him that he truly obsessed over and that no other woman can compare to her as he states “Ligeia has brought far more, very far more, than falls ordinarily to the lot of mortals.”(Poe 648). Rowena’s death did not provoke the same immense grieving that Ligeia did, however this does not mean he was not entirely emotionless. The death of his second wife Rowena represented that his shackles had finely been lifted, that he no longer needs to be strapped to Rowena’s side and can be alone with his thoughts of passion to be with Ligeia as the narrator states “It was blacker than the raven wings of the midnight! And now the eyes opened of the figure which stood before me. “Here then at least,” I shrieked aloud, “can I never—can I never be mistaken—these are the full, and the black, and the wild eyes of the lady—of the lady Ligeia!” (Poe

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