The Raven By Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe’s life was marked by tragedy and loss, sorrow and madness. “The Raven,” written by Poe, is a haunting narrative poem which reflects his own personal struggles with grief, propelling him into despair and madness. The tragic life experiences of Edgar Allan Poe are reflected in his writing “The Raven,” specifically how they related to madmen, murder and melancholy.
The madmen theme is reflected in Poe’s struggle with mental illness and depression.
After the loss of his parents and his wife Virginia, Poe started drinking alcohol to relieve his grief. As a result of his alcoholism, he fell into a deep depression. In “The Raven,” the narrator has lost his love Lenore and struggles to move on from his grief. His interactions with a raven drive him into madness. Driven mad by the persistent tapping of a raven outside his door, Poe lets the raven inside. The narrator tries talking to the raven as if it were a prophet, as

Poe lost both his mother and wife to tuberculosis and clearly, death has been a constant theme in his life. The raven itself is a symbol of death in the poem and its repetition of the word “nevermore” reinforces the narrator’s loss that he will never see his love again. The raven serves as a reminder of how he can’t forget Lenore and that he will not be able to move on. Poe himself never recovered from the loss of his wife Virginia, which is what is happening with the narrator in “The Raven.” Towards the end of “The Raven,” the narrator says, “And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor. Shall be lifted—nevermore!” (Poe, lines 107-108) The narrator describes the murder of his soul and how his grief will never leave him. His shadow of grief has taken over his whole being and perhaps the murder of his own soul. Death was a constant theme in Poe’s personal life, which presented itself as another major theme in “The