Madness And Death In Edgar Allan Poe

In the 19th century, many literary works tended to avoid dark themes and ideas. Edgar Allen Poe, the author of “The Raven”, subverted that in one of the most darkest poems of all time. “The Raven” is a poem about a man who is thinking about his long lost lover, Lenore. We never know what had happened to her. Suddenly a raven appeared at the man’s window, and in trying to converse with the raven, the man’s sanity begins to slip. The poem’s horror and darkness are helped by the poem’s speaker , the tone, and the figurative language.

In “The Raven,” poet Edgar Allen Poe employs a variety of literary devices such as imagery and symbolism. Poe uses these devices to portray the somber mood of the poem. This mood is shown when Poe says, “Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December; And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.” The narrator is fearful of life without his wife and knows he will never be able to get over her death. Throughout the poem the narrator agonizes over the pains he is having with the loss of his wife.

Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” is an eerie and sinister poem because of its dark nature. This poem uses an experience that is understood by many people----- the death of a loved one. Poe uses poetic devices to show the reader just how much grief one could feel by losing a loved one, or just how crazy someone could become because of this grief. This poem features a mysterious raven who repeats the word “Nevermore,” over and over again to a man who has been struck with sadness and grief over the death of his love, Lenore.

Edgar Allan Poe’s work has been admired for centuries. One of his most famous works, The Raven is one many people gravitate towards. This 108 line poem consists of assonance and religious allusions to contrast many different types of religion including Christianity and Hellenism. This gives the audience an inside view on Poe’s religious views, or lack thereof.

devices to illustrate the depressed state of the narrator. The narrator is obsessed with the fact that

Grief of the loss of a loved one can make you go crazy. This is evident in “The Raven” first in this quote “From the books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore.” This is showing that he misses his wife Lenore and that he is also grieving the loss. This theme is also evident in this quote “And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, ”Lenore!” This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, ”Lenore!” - Merely this, and nothing more.” This quote show that when he was sitting in silence he was thinking about his wife. Also he is grieving the loss because he misses her so much. These are examples of how this theme is in “The Raven.”

The theme of grief exists as a significant theme in Edgar Allan Poe’s narrative poem, The Raven. The source of grief comes from the narrator’s emotions toward the death of his loved one. The dark and creepy atmosphere enhances the theme of grief and helps the audience to feel the narrator’s grief. The poem starts “upon a midnight dreary” (456), and the narrator already feels “weak and weary” (456). This sets up a gloomy atmosphere and gives the audience an idea that the poem will be mournful. As the poem progress, the narrator claims, “all my soul within me burning” (457), and it proves that the narrator suffers the grief from something that he is deeply attached to. The narrator tells the audience how badly the event affects him that

Many writers express how they feel by the way they write, and how they see the world around them. Edgar Allan Poe is no exception to the rule. During the early years of Edgar Allan Poe, his father abandoned him, his mother, and two siblings. He later saw his own mother cough up blood and die, due to tuberculosis, a very slow death to encounter for a young age child. He was later adopted in 1811 by a couple who did not even want him (Marshall). Some would say his talent was molded from the tragic events throughout his life, which lead him to write. Poe was an American poet and writer whose work still lingers in many individuals’ imagination. He was very somber in many of his poems and when writing. Throughout his life, he had bad luck and heartaches that continued till his death in 1849 (Marshall). This dark style can be seen in short stories like “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado”. In many different short stories and poems, Poe is known for the strange and unreasonable reasons for murder, isolation, betrayal, insanity, and guilt. Edgar Allan Poe’s life more than likely influenced his distinctive gothic writing style.

In the poem The Raven, written by Edgar Allen Poe the narrator is grieving over a woman named Lenore. The narrator is visited by a raven that reminds him of his grief. The raven also represents evil and death. The Narrator’s deepening insanity can been seen through the narrator’s interactions with the symbolic raven.

“The Raven” by Edgar Poe is written with the analogy of the mind, especially the conscious and subconscious attitude of the mind. The poem is interesting in the sense that the readers could argue over the events in the poem are not happening to the narrator himself, but by preference, within him, and especially within is mind. The poem begins with a dark emphasis “…midnight dreary...” (Poe), which postures the famous stage of Edgar Poe in The Raven.

Edgar Allen Poe is a classic horror author/poet from around the 1800s. He wrote many famous short stories and poems, including The Raven, a poem about a lover lamenting over the loss of a girl named Lenore. In the poem the narrator hears a soft knock at the door, but no one is there. Then again, a tapping on the window. He shakes it off as the wind, but when he opens the window a raven flies in and perches on his chamber door, and allegedly answers the narrator’s questions about his lost love. The meaning of the poem is mysterious and uneasy; through sound devices and figurative language, Poe was able to create this creepy meaning, and keep readers on edge.

The author of “The Raven” is Edgar Allen Poe who is famous for writing deep poems. In “The Raven” the narrator is thinking about his “lost love”, which affects him throughout the poem.Edgar was also going through some tough times too. Even though he was famous he was still dirt poor. Today, I’m going to draw a parallel to “The Raven” and Edgar Allen Poe’s life.

Many people go through horrors in their life. However, most don’t record them in the way Poe did. From a young age Poe experienced death in his family. As Poe lived his life, he started using his feelings and life experiences in his work. He based his feelings in his poems such as Annabel Lee and Alone. He used his life experiences in his works such as The Masque of the Red Death and The Black Cat. Though Poe had a few other works such as The Tell-Tale Heart and The Raven; they did not portray much of his life experiences and feelings like these ones did. Poe’s themes of death, insanity, and emotion through eyes in his works reflect the actual themes in his life.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most notable poets as he has had many powerful and creative pieces that became very popular. As a young boy he had many problems growing up Poe lost his mother when he was only sixteen and left to fend for himself. Throughout his life he was a hopeless romantic who got into a lot of relationships. One of the most known relationships that he got into was with Annabel Lee in which he had created as his last poem before his unexpected death, Annabel Lee. At the time he wasn’t only mourning the death of Annabel Lee but also the death of his wife a few years back which is the reason that he wrote The Raven. Learning about how all of the people that he loved, and cared for died will show just about anyone that it was not an easy life for Poe. A critic once said that Poe wrote and knew that any type of love had to come with loss (Kennedy). This showed a lot about Poe’s life as everyone that he loved he actually did lose. This made it a lonely life that made him very depressed. In his poems, Edgar Allan Poe, portrayed that his loneliness has came from the love, and loss of his most important people.

In “The Raven”, the narrator wrote this poem during the romantic movement. Lots of people during his career said that “The Raven” made him the “Master of Macabre”. This Poem was about Poe losing his dear Lenore. Because of this, he is in much sorrow and is distraught that he will never see her again. “Tell me what thy lordly name is on the night’s plutonian shore! Quoth the raven nevermore” (Poe “The Raven” 47). In this piece of text Poe is talking to a bird. He is in a mental state during this poem. The bird is represented as a symbol of mournful and never-ending remembrance.This helps prove the unreliable narrator because Poe is asking the bird its name and the bird simply responds. He is talking and hearing things that the bird is saying, which is nearly impossible since birds