“The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe describes human’s feelings caused by a loss of someone beloved. Through the use of imagery and symbolism, Poe enables the reader to visualize the situation. The raven that is commonly associated with an evil omen stands for ‘the Death’ in the name of the poem.
The action takes place in one of the rooms in the narrator’s house. To put it more exactly, it is concentrated in the man’s bedroom. The reader can suggest that it is combined with a library as the character is reading a book when he hears a knock on the door (line 10). According to Poe’s description, the setting is just a perfect place for people to mutter and brood to themselves. The room is said to have “silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain” (line 13) and the “velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er” (line 77). The time of the narration is at the end of the year when the weather is normally nasty. This fact can be proved by the words “it was in the bleak December” (line 7) and “a midnight dreary” (line 1).
The very title of the poem “The Raven” is an example of Poe’s skillful use of imagery. The word immediately provokes an image of a black bird and, therefore, the death. Sounds coming from this bird are always assumed to be a curse. Due to this stylistic device, the reader is full of unpleasant misgivings from the first lines of the poem.
Poe begins his poem with “Once upon a midnight dreary”. The line immediately brings up the coinciding image of a dark and late night in the readers’ minds. Poe encourages them to dip into the mysterious atmosphere of his imaginary world. He hypnotizes their readers with the following lines: “While I nodded, nearly napping” (line 3). Poe wants to enable everyone to experience the strange impressions that arise from the unexpected knocks, ” someone gently rapping, and rapping at my chamber door” (line 4). These words evoke some mixed feelings of anxiety and concern. The reader is not capable of predicting what the unexpected disturbance means.
The action develops climatically in the second part of the poem, making the readers experience all kinds of conflicting emotions. At first, one is overwhelmed by the narrator’s excitement, when the latter expects to see his wife Lenore at the door. However, the reality is prompt to kill the hopes – there is nobody at the door. The readers sympathize with the poor man; they readily share his despair and disappointment. Reality confrontation awakes the mournful thoughts about the irreversibility of events. The raven becomes a symbol of melancholy, even though the man does not know about its presence.
The poem is a perfect example of the power of symbolism. Due the artful usage of this device Edgar Poe manages to tell a long and complicated story in few words. Within several lines, he reveals the important questions of grief and death. He also touches upon the matter of failed expectations, showing that people tend to hope for better, no matter how desperate the situation is. The impressive symbols used in the poem help the readers get a better feeling of the atmosphere and share the narrator’s emotions.
References
Bain, Carl E, Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter. The Norton Introduction To Literature, New York: Norton & Company, 2014. Print.