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Allusions In The Raven

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Many people would not be afraid of a simple bird such as a raven, however, there is a man who is terrified of one. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” is about a man who is mourning for his lost love, Lenore. One night in December, he is visited by an ebony, demonic Raven. The Raven constantly annoys the narrator and he is slowly driven to madness. Poe uses symbolism to illustrate the narrator’s loneliness and his grief for Lenore, as well as allusions to depict the dark, despairing mood of this poem. Undoubtedly, Poe utilizes symbolism of the Raven to represent loneliness and loss. While the Raven is sitting on top of the bust, the narrator mutters about the Raven, “Other friends have flown before / On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before” (Poe 58-59). The narrator is aware that the Raven will eventually leave. The Raven is therefore …show more content…

The narrator tells the bird, “Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore” (Poe 86). The author is referring to the devil. In biblical stories, the devil is usually tempting people to be on evil’s side. This explains why he is referred as the “Tempter” in the poem. Furthermore, the devil is rarely ever a representation of "good," instead it represents something that is grim and malicious. This use of allusion causes the audience to question if the Raven was really sent by the devil himself, leaving them in a mood of despair. Additionally, the narrator shrieks at the bird, “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!” (Poe 98). “Night’s Plutonian shore” is an allusion to the underworld of Pluto, the Roman god of death. The underworld is home to the souls of the deceased for eternity, generally not a cheerful place. The underworld is somber and gloomy, causing the audience to remain in a dark mood. The ghastly mood of the poem is demonstrated through Poe’s distinctive uses of

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The Raven is a symbol itself and one may see it as darkness or even death. The Raven as the poem and not the bird may also be about, his failure of outcomes as a

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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.

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He was probably writing about his wife dying. The poem is also based on the raven being a “Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance”. While the

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254 Words | 2 Pages

Poe uses allusion, or references to something well known, throughout his stories and poems to immerse the reader in his writing. In the poem, “The Raven,” the narrator is vexed by the raven’s answer of “Nevermore” on his lost love Lenore, so he goes into deep fury and screams at the raven to get back into, “the Night’s Plutonian shore” (Lines 43, 47). Here, Poe alludes to Pluto, the Greek God of Underworld, and the coast to the river Styx which carries dead souls into the Underworld. The allusions express the narrator's thoughts dwelling on death and sorrow which creates a depressing mood in the readers. His thoughts about the Underworld foreshadow that he will always live with a feeling of emptiness.

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87 Words | 1 Pages

In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, “The Raven,” there are many symbols. For example, Lenore, “nevermore,” and the raven. Firstly, the character Lenore represents his dead wife Virginia. Furthermore, the quote “Nevermore,” which all the raven says, represents him losing his wife and the repeating losses in his life. Additionally, the raven represents death and sorrow, which is typically the theme in his poems and his life.

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302 Words | 2 Pages

In the poem The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, figurative language is used to emphasize and intensify the growing emotions of the narrator. To the narrator, the raven symbolizes bad fortune. Moreover, the raven is black and black can represent death or evil. Poe twists the bird into a controlling being who torments him over the death of a loved one and he is able to enhance that effect with the use of metaphors. The use of metaphors in this poem adds an eerie background to the bird and adds quality to the writing.

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961 Words | 4 Pages

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. Poe starts off this poem with assonance when he uses the terms “dreary,” “weak and weary.”

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776 Words | 4 Pages

The Plutonian shore is referring to Pluto, the Greek god of the underworld. This is one of the many indicators that ravens are perceived as evil and of the speaker reaching his breaking

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678 Words | 3 Pages

“I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him.” This is just one quote of many, Poe’s creepy stories that he wrote in his lifetime. In Poe’s stories the narrator wanted to solve a problem, but he went about it the wrong way so, people die and the narrator got caught. In some of Poe’s short stories, the theme, not to let depression or grief make one to turn to alcohol, is shown throughout the conflict, figurative language, and setting.

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The speaker, engaged in guessing, ultimately associated the bird’s being as God’s way of bringing upon him the realness of his loss. Apprising the raven, the speaker’s desire to “...quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!” (83), brings about his yearning for a relief of his sorrow. Nepenthe, being a drug the ancient Greeks believed would relieve despondency, was his sole longing. He wants nothing but to disremember any thoughts of his past love, and believes the raven has the potential to do so.

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Edgar Alen Poe's poems relates to him because, they are about all the tragedy's he has had in his past. His life was filled with tragedy and darkness. In the raven he is trying to get over his lover's death. The raven basically is like him saying that things keep stiring up the memories he had with his lover. The raven has a lot of evidence that "The Raven" is relating to a trauma.

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

Nothing further then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered; Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before; On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before." Then the bird said, "Nevermore." Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store, Caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful

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850 Words | 4 Pages

The poem makes some allusions, for example when referring to the bust of shovels, refers to the bust of atene or atena or "shovels athena" ie the crow perches on the Greek goddess of wisdom, civilization, war, art and strategy . "That bird or demon" rests on wisdom, according to the author of the poem, the time of year in which the poem is located is December, a month of much magic, but the most important allegory is the raven itself, "bird of the demon "" that comes from the plutonic riviera of the night "also refers to the crow as a messenger from beyond, in a few words it refers to the Roman god Pluto of the underworld, its equivalent for the Greeks was hades as a curious fact the Romans instituted exclusive priests to plutón called "victimarios" of all the Roman gods plutón was the most ruthless and feared, then the crow was a messenger of the beyond, perhaps invoked by that "old book, rare and of forgotten science", during the poem was speaks of seraphim that perfumed the room, with censers, according to the Christian angelology the seraphim have the highest ranks in the celestial hierarchy, since they are not made in image and Likeness of God, rather they are part or essence

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1783 Words | 8 Pages

The story is dedicated to a loss one of Poe. In “Poe Museum,”(2017) it says “Most famously, poe completely transformed the genre of the horror story with his masterful tales of psychological depth and insight not envisioned in the genre before his time and scarcely seen it since.” In Poe’s story “The Raven,” he gets in the reader’s head with his recurring themes and his way of portraying the sense of fear with his poetic lyrics. The mood he creates with his setting makes it seem very down because the story takes place in a dark room where the raven flies in through a window.

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1414 Words | 6 Pages

Let’s start by looking at the protagonist of the poem who illustrates a lot of psychoanalytical issues in his ordeal with the raven. From the start of the poem to the end, the reader can recognize and identify many defenses. Some of them include selective memory, selective deception, selective perception, denial and displacement especially towards the end. The most significant issue presented in the poem is the fear of being abandoned. Let me delve deeper into the subject.

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