Comparing Love In The Highwayman And Annabel Lee

Alfred Noyes apprises his audience about a personable maiden held captive by King George’s men and the significant other in her life in his highly acclaimed narrative poem titled “The Highwayman”. To prevent her lover from returning back to where she was being used as enticement, the young woman shoots herself in the attempt to admonish her love, the Highwayman. The speaker of “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe, claims that the love and the admirable aspects of his beloved had encouraged many coveting angels to take her life. The speaker’s everlasting love breaks the boundary between heaven and earth, however, avowing continuous affection. Both authors imply the general topic of love, however they each make their own variations to compose juxtaposing

“The her fingers moved in the moonlight,/ Her musket shattered the moonlight,/Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him with her death” (75-78). Noyes utilizes the literary devices imagery and repetition in this specific stanza to set a melancholy mood to accompany the theme and call for a climactic scene in which Bess, the young maiden, decides her beloved’s life is worth more than hers. Noyes portrays the true meaning of sacrifice when Bess does not hesitate to pull the trigger, ensuring the safety of the Highwayman as well as the end to her own life. The reader can conspicuously visualize the grand magnitude of the Highwayman’s significance to Bess as well as fathom an idea of how much of an impact love has on one’s persona and decisions. “Back he spurred like a madman, shouting a curse to the sky,/ with the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high./...And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat” (85-86, 89). The author explicitly denotes the infuriation and rage within the Highwayman, using words pertaining a negative connotation, and builds on the theme of sacrificial by turning this extreme ire into a motivation for vengeance. The reader can apprehend the despondency that drives the Highwayman into returning back to the inn in frantic search of his love, even if it

“With a love that the wingéd seraphs in Heaven/ coveted her and me.../chilling/ My beautiful/ Annabel Lee ” (11,15-16). The author’s poetic language is able to enhance the message of the theme as well as portray the compulsiveness of the speaker towards his lover that is unquestionably depicted within the stanza the speaker begins to contently delineate his lover, but then rapidly changes his tone and instead shoots accusations at the angels in heaven for tearing apart him from his beloved. The reader can deduce that the speaker had become blinded by the perfections of Annabel Lee and forced himself to believe she had met a sudden demise only because of how strong their love was and still is and not due to superficial reasons. “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side /Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,/ In her sepulchre there by the sea — “ (38-40). Again, Poe is manifesting the theme of obsessive love by describing the manners and actions of the speaker in a disturbing way, evoking a strong sense of how mental he was for his lover to the point of laying next to her soulless body on a daily basis as if it was something done regularly. The reader can interpret the phrases “my darling” and “my life” as desperation, not infatuation, by the surrounding lines illustrating the image of the speaker communicating with his beloved even