Poe
Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven is a fabulous poem that is looked at by numerous students each year. This poem is a dark poem that has a sad tone to it. A man is "nearly napping"(l. 3) in his chamber when he hears a knock on his door. Instantly he believes it possibly could be his dead wife, which somehow came back from the dead. However, when he opens the door he only sees is "Darkness" (l. 24). Then "a tapping" (l. 32) at his window draws him over to it. When he opens the window "a stately raven"(l. 38) enters his chamber. Soon, the man and the Raven get into a conversation. Although the man knows what the Raven will respond to each of his questions, he continues asking to satisfy his need to know why he is there. As the man grows more intrigued by the bird he seems to grow crazy. He is wondering throughout the poem where his deceased wife is, whether she went to heaven or hell. At the end of the poem, the raven stays in the chamber forevermore to continue to haunt the man for eternity. A simple bird can make a man go crazy by no more than repeating one word. In the first stanza, the man is nearly asleep, when a noise that he thinks is a knock at his door awakens him. The first thing he thinks of is that
In the 15th stanza, he generously calls the bird a "Prophet!"(l. 85). However, the bird cannot tell the future. He has been taught only one word and that word is his answer to every question asked of him. The next question he asks the raven "is there balm in Gilead?"(l. 89). The answer to that question sends the man into a fury. If there is no balm in Gilead then there is little medical resin to heal all of the people of world that will see death come to early in their life and mankind will die. He then wants to know if his precious Lenore has gone to heaven. The obvious answer makes the man quite upset; knowing that the love of his life has not gone to heaven makes him outraged. After the last answer, he tells the raven to get out of his house, but the raven says he will never remove himself from the chamber, and haunt the man for the rest of his life. He, then, succumbs to the bird and realizes that for the rest of his life he will be haunted by both the memory of Lenore, and by the bird. His obsession for his precious Lenore becomes most evident here. As he stares into the emptiness he sees nothing, but suddenly he thinks he hears her name, Lenore, come out of the nothing that is in front of him. He hears it and then responses to it repeating "Lenore"(l. 29), but still no one is there. As he goes back into his chamber, he is quite confused. He does not know if what he heard was real or just something that he dreamed. As he ponders that dilemma he hears another sound, this time, however, this time it comes from his window. He wants to believe that the sound is only the wind scratching against the window. However, he must check it out though because of his need to find his most valua
Some common words found in the essay are:
Pallas Greek, Soon Raven, Poe's Raven, rest life, answer question, gone heaven, knock door, precious lenore, ten syllables, chamber door, door sits, questions bird, throughout poem,
Approximate Word count = 1155
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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