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Use Of Imagery In Edgar Allan Poe's Annabel Lee

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Edgar Allan Poe was an extraordinary writer that brought a lot to our culture through his work. In his short 40 year life he had written around 147 literary works, from short stories, poems,essays and even a play. But what actually gave life to these works, what was the inspiration behind them, what was on Poe’s mind when he put pen to paper.
Poe lost everyone he had ever loved and you can feel his sorrow in some of his poems. In my personal favorite poem of his, Annabel Lee, the speaker is remembering one of his loves that was taken away from him by death. Poe uses a lot of imagery in his work the first being the kingdom he speaks of and is a reoccurring subject in this poem. He may be trying convey a place of solitude or even something that …show more content…

Similar to death, a ocean is a powerful thing in nature that cannot be stopped. The demons that live beneath the sea want to tear the two apart but the two souls can not be dissevered, basically saying that even after death Poe’s love will not be any different than when she was alive.
In her tomb or sepulchre by the sea she lay, the ocean holds everything together, from the kingdom to the demons and at last her final resting spot. Poe uses alliteration throughout the poem but mostly using Sea as the root word for his alliterations.
The moon plays a factor into the tides of the sea but the the tides of his heart, he personifies the moon saying that the moon brings him dreams of Annabel Lee at night and the stars are actually the eyes of his beloved Annabel Lee peering through the clouds. Poe adds a dash of mythological feel to it, with the maiden, kingdom and the winged seraphs. The seraphs are evil and despise the love between Annabel Lee and the narrator. These seraphs are portrayed as dark creatures instead of the holy angels that we’d expect. Between the demons below and the winged seraphs above, it’s the lovers versus the world. But inevitably Annabel Lee would be taken away physically from the narrator but not spiritually as I Justified

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Then while browsing his other works I came across “Spirits of the Dead” which I fell in love with instantly but also made me think of Virginia. In stanza 1, of “Annabel Lee” Poe sets up the poem with a visual of a castle by the sea, sort of like a Disney scene, tricks you into believing this will have a happy ending. Like a bedtime story, Poe reveals a beatific view of the where, when, and who he loves. In stanza 2, Poe introduces the fact that they were children, which supports the theory that he is speaking of his Virginia. He repeats the scene so we don’t forget the Majesty of the where and so we continue to believe this will end happily.

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Author’s lives inspire their writing in many ways. An illustrious writer, Edgar Allan Poe, experienced continuous sufferings throughout his life. The heartaches he faced transferred into his writing. Poe’s works are dark and traumatic, such as “The Pit and the Pendulum.” He uses the unthinkable and shapes short stories out of them.

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Poe creates a suspense throughout the poem with the repetiton of the raven's answer ,”Nevermore”. We know that the narrator is in deep agony since he lost his wife and he is looking for ways of getting rid of this pain or even bringing his wife back to life. That's why he has been looking at various books, hoping for a miracle or something supernatural to happen. Thus, when the raven arrives, the narrator may have thought that he could find the answers to the questions in his head. And thus, everytime the raven answers his question with the same line, the narrator goes mad and the tension builds.

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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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In her tomb by the sounding sea.” Here, the speaker sleeps next to Annabel Lee’s tomb which makes him obsessed with her. Poe displays that the obsessed speaker doesn’t go to his house to rest, but he sleeps right next to her grave. The speaker was obsessed with his love so much, he did drastic things just to be with Annabel Lee’s dead

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Poe writes: “But we loved with a love that was more than love…with a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me,” (Poe 193). Poe is alluding to his wife Virginia and using her death as a way to create the character of Annabel Lee who also dies as the narrator blames it on the angels, or seraphs, in heaven that covet their love. Once again, Bloom draws similarities between Annabel Lee and Poe’s life in the way that “Poe curiously blends the natural and supernatural, as ‘chilling and killing’ also suggests the all-too-real circumstances of death from tuberculosis,” (Bloom 2). In the poem, Poe mentions the chilling that killed Annabel Lee. This could be used as an allusion to the illness that took Virginia away from Poe.

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Precious memories of shared experiences, laughter-filled moments, and the once-cherished intimacy can morph into painful reminders of what is now absent. The envisioned future, once filled with hope and promise, transforms into an intimidating expanse of uncertainty, leaving behind a void that appears impossible to fill. In both "The Raven'' and "Annabel Lee," the grief-stricken narrator's attempt to navigate their feelings after losing their beloveds, or their angels, as they called them. Neither narrator discovers a positive means of moving beyond the pain. Instead, their minds instinctively cling to the ache, unable to stem the bleeding of their hearts.

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The speaker's reflections on his past love with Annabel Lee and the memories they shared together are a reminder of the love they once shared, and the pain of loss that comes with the death of a loved one. The language used by Poe is melancholic and sorrowful, as seen in lines like "But our love it was stronger by far than the love/Of those who were older than we", "And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes" which convey the speaker's longing for his lost love and the emptiness he feels without her. Additionally, the imagery of the "kingdom by the sea" and "a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling" are symbols that reinforce the sadness of the mood by depicting nature as a reminder of death, cold, and

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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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Edgar Allan Poe is irrevocably in love with Annabel Lee at the start and throughout the whole of this poem. Annabel Lee is just the same reciprocating the exact same feelings if not more. “With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me” this portrays to me a love so strong and so passionate that even heaven has reckoned it by blessing their relationship with an angelic power. Both characters are mercilessly separated at the

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In her tomb by the sounding sea” (40-41). This tells us that Annabel Lee is deceased and when someone talks about a death it is sad. “The wind came out of the cloud by night, / Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee” (25-26). This, also being from “Annabel Lee” Poe writes because he believes the angels in heaven killed her because their love was too strong and so they were jealous. This gives a sad tone because again, Poe talks about her death.

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Though Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories like, The Cask of Amontillado, to his poems like, The Raven, Poe’s shows his writing style to use physical imagery and connotative syntax to show ,imagery in his writing. Throughout his life, Poe had always lived through the most chaotic and evil of time. His parents died while he was 3 years old. After his parents died, he lived with another family member who never accepted him as their own son. Later on in life, Poe had served in the military and at that point he started writing poems.

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Poe mentions his own world and the difference between the two worlds in the poem as well as Israfel’s world. Poe writes about how different lives can lead to much different personalities. He mentions this in the last half of the poem, or stanzas five through eight. In the last half of the poem, it says, “Yes, Heaven is thine; but this- Is a world of sweets and sours;” in this quote Poe writes that “heaven is thine” which means that heaven is the narrator’s ideal place (Poe 7.1-2). He also mentions that “this is a world of sweets and sours” which means this world, Earth, has both good and bad consequences of living here.

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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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Edgar Allan Poe was an American author; he mainly focused in genres such as short stories and poems. Poe didn’t have much of an academic background in literature but, he excelled in it. Some people believe that his success was mostly due to the fact that his life was very sad, filled by a series on misfortunate events, such as being an orphan, suffering from poverty and being constantly surrounded by death. In his works, Poe portrays narratives that are characterized by their mystery and macabre. The topic of death was ever present in his work, constantly describe with dark moods and somewhat terrifying settings.

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