The Raven

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The Raven

Introduction

“The Raven” was published in January 1845 by famous pet Edgar Allan Poe. It is important to consider that “The Raven” is one of his most popular poems as it is an overnight sensation. It is a story about a person who constantly thought about his departed wife. He trapped himself in a world full of sorrow and sadness as he was unable to cope with the incident of his departed wife. The author effectively used literary elements in the poem to highlight the entire scenario. The author illustrated how difficult it is to overcome the feelings of sorrow and sadness. It is a well-known fact that humans are emotionally weak, which makes them vulnerable when their beloved ones left them. Gloom, doom, and sadness have been around since the beginning of time. The author demonstrated that the speaker is entrapped in his own loneliness with the sense of doom.

Discussion

A number of themes are discussed in the poem by the author. Most prominent themes include love, madness, imagination, supernatural, and man and the natural world. However, the role of imagination is more significant than all these themes. The speaker heard some sort of knocking on his window. “Soon I heard again a tapping somewhat at my window lattice” (Poe 32). When he opened that window a raven flew in. The author illustrated that the raven reminds the speaker about his departed wife. It is notable to consider that the raven seems real, at first. However, after reading the poem again and again, one can easily understand that the raven does not exist in reality. It only existed in the mind of the narrator as he wanted something to get over the death of his wife.

The author explicitly demonstrated that the speaker wanted to both forget and remember her at the same time. Upon reading the poem, one can observe that the speaker tortures himself again and again with the help of a raven. He continuously asked the raven various questions regarding his wife. The man imagined that the raven was sent from God in order to release him from his pain and sorrow. The speaker inclined to cover his sadness by considering that a raven is sent for his wellbeing. However, the author demonstrated that each question by the speaker was answered with “nevermore” from the raven, which was detrimental to him. “He defended the Raven with its exquisite versification, against any charge of being aimless and unsatisfactory” (Evans 77). Soon the speaker began to realize that the raven is temporary just like any other thing in the world.

One can assume that the raven is imaginary as it was in the sub-consciousness of the speaker. The speaker stated that “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, over many quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, while I nodded, nearly napping” (Poe 1-3). With this statement, it is evident that the speaker was floating in his imaginary world due to the sense of loneliness and doom. The author portrays the exotic in terms of the raven who refused to leave and remained in one place. The speaker only created the raven in his mind due to his imbalance mental state at that time.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, The Raven depicts the grief of a person who torments himself due to his departed wife. A critical examination of the poem indicates that the author explicitly illustrated the role of imagination in a person’s life in order to cope with grief and sadness. The sadness and grief can cause an individual to imagine all sorts of weird stuff.

Works Cited

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Evans, Robert C. “The Poems of Edgar Allan Poe: Their Critical Reception.” Critical Insights: The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe, Oct. 2010, pp. 75–91. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,sso&db=lfh&AN=57519538&site=eds-live.

Levine, Robert S, Michael A. Elliott, Sandra M. Gustafson, Amy Hungerford, and Mary Loeffelholz. The Norton Anthology of American Literature: American Literature 1865-1914. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017. Print.

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