Personification The Raven

Divide and conquer. For centuries this piece of advice had been given as the cheat sheet to taking over a nation. It takes advantage of humanity’s many differing issues and world views. However, the only thing that no human can contest is that all must taste death. No one knows how, when, or where, but they know it’s coming and often when least expected. In “The Raven”, Edgar Allan Poe uses symbolism, personification, and allusion to explore the themes of grief and the finality of death.

The first symbol introduced by Poe is the speaker's “chamber door.” (line 4). This door represents insecurity. It functions as any other door would, opening and closing and allowing exposure to the outside world. Something is coming and “tapping” at his insecurities,

This could be interpreted as the speaker choosing to ignore the tapping on his door, much the same way he ignores his insecurities and avoids facing them. The words used such as sorrow, dying, bleak all give the poem “a heavy, solemn tone.”(Gaston 161). This gives us insight into the mental state of the speaker, and foreshadowing for the rest of the poem. Once the speaker finally gained the courage to open his chamber door, he found nothing on the other side but darkness. He faced his insecurities only to be met with a black hole of suffering and pain. This is similar to what anyone would find if they faced their insecurities head on like this, and the speaker finds it difficult as well. The speaker was expecting to find a visitor on the other side, a source of sympathy, but was instead left in shock: “Deep into that darkness

It is described in such a way that it seems to be noble or grand, when in fact it is just a raven. It is not a “mien of lord or lady”, but the speaker sees it that way due to the effect Lenore’s loss had on him (40). Poe alludes to Greek mythology when he describes the raven as “Perched upon a bust of Pallas,” (41). Pallas is another name for the goddess of wisdom Athena. This symbolizes the speaker’s grief and loss sitting upon his wisdom, suppressing his rational thought. Taking advantage of the opportunity to face his grief and loss so directly, the speaker, almost in a state of disbelief, speaks to the raven. In a moment of human-like lucidity and emotion, the raven replies in the one word that encapsulates the speaker’s greatest pain, “Nevermore” (48). This single word represents the finality of death and the permanence of his loss. He will never get the chance to be with Lenore again, and nothing he can do will change that. No matter how hard he clings to life and hope, she will be brought back nevermore. Deep down, the speaker knows this as well, since upon first seeing the raven he says, “Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!” (47). In this case, Pluto refers to the god of the underworld, a place between life and death. The speaker’s mind is in a similar place, not yet dead, but not living either since he doesn’t have his Lenore. A defining characteristic of the underworld is there is no