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Diction In The Raven

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In Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven,” he illustrates a world of utter loneliness and paranoia which has plagued him as the result of a petrifying raven and the loss of his wife, Lenore. He can’t seem to get over his pain so he chooses isolation and insanity instead. Through the grim diction and dark symbolism in stanza 15, Poe depicts the insanity and madness of the human mind when a loved one is ripped away.
Poe uses dark symbolism to represent his insanity mixed with the desire for his lost love Lenore. He uses the Raven as a representation of the Devil while truly believing it has come from the Underworld to haunt him in his isolation. This shows the disturbing length his mind has come to complete madness as he describes the Raven by saying, “‘Prophet!’ said I, ‘thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!” (Poe 85). In his lunacy, he associates the Raven as a Prophet who is either good or bad but has come to tell him of his love …show more content…

Poe uses dark and nebulous diction such as “evil”, “devil”, “horror”, and “desolate” in lines 85-88 of “The Raven” to develop a sinister mood and further the connection between his dark past and this horrific raven that has come to haunt him. He can’t seem to escape his past or find any form of solitude and peace in his isolation which leads to his desperate plea where he begs the Raven asking for a “balm in Gilead” (Poe 89). He makes this allusion to a place in Palestine which is known for its healing ointment in the Bible to portray his desperation as he implores the Raven to give him an answer and heal his endless suffering. He feels utterly lost in despair without his love Lenore which leads to his eroding sanity and paranoia as he inflicts his own form of self-torture by pleading with a raven whose only answer will ever be, “Nevermore”

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How Edgar Allan Poe Portrays Insanity in The Raven A literary analysis by Viktor Wemmer - TE13C The Raven is arguably Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous work and it has been both criticised and praised by people all around the world. It revolves around an unnamed narrator who was half reading, half sleeping while trying to forget about his lost love Lenore, tells us about how he during a bleak December notices someone tapping on his chamber door, but when he gets up to answer there is no one there. The same sound later is heard coming from his window, and a raven flies into his room when he proceeds to open it.

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First, the common theme of “The Raven” is grief,agony, and heartache. With dialogue like “while I pondered,weak and weary”shows that emotion. The narrator is sad about his lost love Lenore. Which is parallel to when Poe’s wife was deadly ill.

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Finally, the last example of figurative language expressed in the poem comes in the shape of a metaphor. Although “The Raven,” is covered in personification, Poe still leaves room for all types of figurative language. In line seventy five, Poe uses a metaphor to associate the raven to fire. This one again gives the poem a dark twist to it. In this line, Poe makes a correlation between the fiery eyes of the raven and the burning in the narrator’s core.

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Insanity in "The Raven"  "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe, is written in a somber and eerie tone consistent with the majority of Poe's writings. The speaker of the poem is quite obviously disturbed and in the midst of an indomitable depression. He longs for his "lost Lenore"(688), and grieves for her throughout his interactions with the main antagonist of the story, the raven outside of his door. The overall theme of madness that results from the speakers inability to deal with his grief appropriately is unmistakable. The speaker exhibits several symptoms of legitimate legal insanity in that he speaks directly to a raven and genuinely expects a cogent reply from it, and he shows some rather impulsive behavior brought on simply by the presence

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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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The speaker’s relationship with his “lost Lenore,” seems to be an unexpected one. Lenore is referred to as an angel, while the narrator is surrounded by ghosts and evil feelings. The feeling of terror which was felt when the narrator opened the door to find “darkness there and nothing more,” could have been reduced had a light been nearby to illuminate the hallway, but the importance of the darkness shows the audience that the lack of religion and prayers of the narrator are taking a toll on him, as the seemingly lack of religious beliefs Poe had also affected his life. Not only did Poe allude to the evil aspects of religions in this poem, but he also threw in a few allusions that make the audience question what Poe’s beliefs truly were. Poe alludes to the Hellenistic story of Pallas Athena in line 41, the narrator points out that this Raven is “perched upon a bust of Pallas,” Poe specifically chose Pallas because she and Lenore relate to each other in the ways that the two of them will only live on in their names.

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The Raven was sent to the character by a higher power to help the character cope with his loss and loneliness he feels. The raven Symbolizes Lenore and her significant presence to the unknown character. The raven symbolizes the presence of Lenore as she appears after the unknown character is thinking and talking about the hurt he feels. The quote that showed evidence of this was “From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the loss Lenore - For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name

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By telling the poem “The Raven “in first person point of view we learn that the narrator is alone Because we hear his thoughts as well as his spoken words we learn of the loss of his beloved, “For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—“ the poem continues to chronicle the narrators search for the source of the noise. Without the first person point of view the narrators madness and anxiety would not be clear, Poe made it clear that the loss of a loved can create madness that can last forever. In the poem “The Raven,” Edgar Allen Poe uses repetition to builds suspense.

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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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Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most notable poets as he has had many powerful and creative pieces that became very popular. As a young boy he had many problems growing up Poe lost his mother when he was only sixteen and left to fend for himself. Throughout his life he was a hopeless romantic who got into a lot of relationships. One of the most known relationships that he got into was with Annabel Lee in which he had created as his last poem before his unexpected death, Annabel Lee. At the time he wasn’t only mourning the death of Annabel Lee but also the death of his wife a few years back which is the reason that he wrote The Raven.

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