The Raven and its Remorseful Reasoning
Madeline Bragulla
Joe Kane
American Literature
6 December 2013
The Raven and its Remorseful Reasoning Perhaps one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous works, “The Raven” sets a tone of Stygian mania. The narrator, a man nearly napping in his study and filled with grief over his lost love Lenore, hears something rapping and tapping on his door. When he rises intrigued to greet the visitor, there is no one there. He calls for Lenore in vain, and turns back to his empty chamber when there is no answer. He hears the tapping again, much louder than before, and opens the window in the assumption that the wind was causing the tapping against the pane. But instead of a gust of wind, a stately raven flutters in. The narrator talks to the bird, but it only repeats the word, “Nevermore.” The narrator’s composure changed from curiosity to heightening madness at the bird’s repetition. He soon suspects something otherworldly about the strange black bird. He pleads for it to leave, but the bird still sits on a bust of Pallas above the narrator’s door; only this and nothing more. In “The Raven,” the Raven’s presence and location, repetition of thoughts and ideas, and the narrator’s growing madness all represent depression.
The black bird first enters the room via the window, and perches itself on a bust of Pallas. Black is a hue often associated with sinister ideals and metaphorical darkness. Poe often uses black in his short stories and poems to convey a hellish and sometimes supernatural and always heavy darkness. In “The Black Cat,” for example, the cat portrays evil the the narrator’s mind. The black cat stands a superstitious nightmare for the narrator, who is insane with thoughts of the cat. Similarly, the black bird represents something equally as foreboding as the cat. The bird is described as being “grim” and “ancient,” as if it had stood the tests of time and was there to plague the narrator specifically. Along with the color and general murkiness of the bird, where
Joe Kane
American Literature
6 December 2013
The Raven and its Remorseful Reasoning Perhaps one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous works, “The Raven” sets a tone of Stygian mania. The narrator, a man nearly napping in his study and filled with grief over his lost love Lenore, hears something rapping and tapping on his door. When he rises intrigued to greet the visitor, there is no one there. He calls for Lenore in vain, and turns back to his empty chamber when there is no answer. He hears the tapping again, much louder than before, and opens the window in the assumption that the wind was causing the tapping against the pane. But instead of a gust of wind, a stately raven flutters in. The narrator talks to the bird, but it only repeats the word, “Nevermore.” The narrator’s composure changed from curiosity to heightening madness at the bird’s repetition. He soon suspects something otherworldly about the strange black bird. He pleads for it to leave, but the bird still sits on a bust of Pallas above the narrator’s door; only this and nothing more. In “The Raven,” the Raven’s presence and location, repetition of thoughts and ideas, and the narrator’s growing madness all represent depression.
The black bird first enters the room via the window, and perches itself on a bust of Pallas. Black is a hue often associated with sinister ideals and metaphorical darkness. Poe often uses black in his short stories and poems to convey a hellish and sometimes supernatural and always heavy darkness. In “The Black Cat,” for example, the cat portrays evil the the narrator’s mind. The black cat stands a superstitious nightmare for the narrator, who is insane with thoughts of the cat. Similarly, the black bird represents something equally as foreboding as the cat. The bird is described as being “grim” and “ancient,” as if it had stood the tests of time and was there to plague the narrator specifically. Along with the color and general murkiness of the bird, where