Response To The Raven

The One Person Who Plays for Baltimore’s NFL Team As the control center of the entire body, the human mind is capable of many extraordinary things. From breaking-down and solving math equations to reading and analyzing poetry, its ability to process more than 60,000 different thoughts a day, at two hundred and seventy miles-per-hour, surpasses that of any electronic device or machine. However, unlike a computer, the way our mind interprets daily thoughts and actions is greatly affected by the experiences we face each and everyday. For instance, in the poem, “The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe, the speaker, a middle-aged man, is succumbed to face the reality of losing his lost love, Lenore. One dreary night, at the hour of midnight, the speaker,

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. As like unto every other time the raven has spoken, he replies with the statement, “Nevermore.” That simple, one-word response was enough to make the man begin to doubt his prior assumption, and rather than believing the bird was a being sent from God, he was but a “thing of evil! ---...Tempter sent,” (85). The Tempter, otherwise known as the Adversary, or Satan, in biblical terms, is often associated with deceiving and leading others astray from the path to righteousness. His use of distractions and false proclamations are what led many to misery and sorrow. In comparison, Poe’s incorporation of the devil into the story helps the reader feel a deeper, more-real sense of despair---as if the man was on a downward spiral into never-ending emptiness. The raven, in this instance, represented the reality of the entire instance. He, up

Rather than facing his struggles, the man left his “soul...floating on the floor…[to be] lifted---nevermore,” (Poe 107-108). He let his sorrow affect him so greatly, that he has no desire or hope that his soul, the part that consists of the mind, thoughts, and feelings, will ever get back to the way they used to be. Our bodies grant upon us feelings of pain by means to correct them. The signals we feel are to alert us that we need to make a change in order to let our body heal. The same goes for heartbreak. The heart and mind can become so hurt, that they can physically ache and cause the person to feel empty inside. Like a cut wound, we should pay attention to our bodies and give it the proper care it needs in order to recover. The man in the story simply decided to ignore those feelings. He did whatever he could to take his mind off and ignore the sensations of his body. If the same actions were taken in resolving a wound, the consequences could become fatal; ignoring the heart and mind could be just as dangerous. The man, instead of facing the realness of the loss of his love, he looked for any means necessary to find a meaning behind it. He was so far gone, that when he finally came to the realization that there was no way of regaining his beloved Lenore back, his mind, thoughts, and feelings were “in the floor.” He had no will or desire to look at the