Annabel Lee And The Raven Comparison

With famous single words and the haunting meaning behind them, “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee” Edgar Allen Poe’s poems are almost a mirror of each other. Both have a narrator that duels between sanity and in sanity. In both poems the narrator deals with the lost of their love ones. The reader can see that each man deals with the loss of his wife differently and the slipping of the narrators sanity in the process. How the narrators loose their sanity and how their surrounding caters to the downward spiral cause the two poems with similar theme is contrast with each other.

In “Annabel Lee” the narrator denies that his wife has simply denies but that the angels were so jealous of their love that they took her away thus separating them. Unlike “Annabel”

“Annabel Lee” and “Nevermore” are mantras to the narrators that they repeat. It can be said that they both speak with a since of madness as they speak of their lost wives. In “Annabel Lee” it can be since that the narrator is more optimistic as he thinks that while Annabel Lee is gone in his heart they will always be together. “But our love it was stronger by far than the love, Of those who were older than we— Of many far wiser than we—And neither the angels in Heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea. Can ever dissever my soul from the soul. Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;” Unlike “Annabel Lee” the narrator is more pessimistic as he connives his self that he’ll never see his wife again even though he hears noises that slowly drive him crazy. In the scene where he thinks he hears a knock at the door he throws it open telling explain to the reader and the ‘guest’ the he is sorry for not answering quicker only to find that no one was there in the first place. As he peered into the darkness he whispers his wife name thinking it might be her and thinking, she answered back. But it was only his own voice that he heard. “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

While “The Raven” is more of a horror poem and the narrator can be seen as loosing his mind in a more adult like faction that is combined with depression. “Annabel Lees” is told like a song that still deals with the lost of his wife but he still holding on to the fact they never did part and their love will live on. The way the narrator approaches the lost, is with a child like mentally. He describes their love as innocent too; never mind that they are adults. “And this maiden she lived with no other thought. Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child,” Even thought he comes to deals with the lost in naïve manner, he still driving himself into insanity as he can not deal with the reality of his wife die because of what can be a illness, instead he spin this story of a innocent, childhood love that was so pure and sweet that the heavens sent angels to separate them. “The Raven” is more of the horror poem as the narrator is so lost in a mix insanity, loneliness and sadness that he believes that he thinks that Lenore had comeback and questions why the raven has come to visit him even asking if he –the raven- will leave him too. ”Then the raven said, “Nevermore”.” While the narrator knows Lenore will not return to him, he makes useless efforts to not feels so alone which makes him loose his