Annabel Lee Essay

Improved Essays
The poem’s comprehensive theme is love, however, mortality also plays a substantial role, as the narrator mourns his wife’s death throughout “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe. First, the theme of love becomes evident as the narrator describes that the two “loved with a love that was more than love” (Poe 9). Love is existing because the narrator expresses his strong affection for his late wife Annabel Lee from the start of their relationship when they were only innocent children. He also explains clearly that the angels in Heaven even envied the power of their love. Next, Poe again emphasizes the theme of love as the two share a connection that “was stronger by far than love”(27). The amount of love they share is coveted by angels and demons and they will never dissever it. …show more content…
Finally, as the theme of love becomes the dominant theme of Poe’s stanzas, mortality also plays an impactful role after Annabel Lee’s “highborn kinsmen came and bore her away from me, to shut her up in a sepulchre”(17). Mortality is also a major theme in the poem as the narrator grieves over his loss and even lays in the tomb with his late wife at night. The kingdom by the sea becomes the spot of their love and even when she is buried, the narrator continues to communicate with her through means of nature in the moon and the stars. The poem ends and it becomes clear that the overall theme and topic in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” is evidently love, however, another big attribute is death in which the narrator displays his grievance

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    By personifying death, he was comparing it to God. “Death looks gigantically down” (Poe, “The City in the Sea”). Unlike the poems “Annabel Lee” and “Eldorado” death has a strong presence in this poem. Although the words death or dying are not mentioned in “Eldorado,” it is still a theme of the poem.…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Lindsey Arthur Essay

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Lindsey Arthur: Dedicated Leader and Community Helper The candidate must be willing to put hard work, dedication, and effort into helping the community. Lindsey Arthur is willing to put hard work, dedication, and effort into helping the community. She has shown these traits by being a great leader and by helping build over a hundred homes in the Muncie community. Her dedication has made working for Habitat For Humanity fun and a privilege for many.…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The narrative poem uses alliteration, contributing to the importance of the sound Annabel Lee, and is a constant reminder of her…

    • 2476 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Katherine Johnson Essay

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Katherine Johnson was born in August 26, 1918. She was born in a small town called White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. She was the youngest of four kids. Her father was a handyman at a hotel and her mother was a teacher. Katherine loved math since she was really young.…

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Anna Atkins Essay

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Anna Atkins, the first women photographer, had many talents and I chose her book covers “Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns” because I thought it was the best example that both spoke about what she did for photography as well as science. Her work was not just art but it itself was groundbreaking for other women photographers and scientist alike. This process, of documenting ferns, allowed people to understand what they looked like, size and scale, giving proof to science and the botanist community on their existence and important documentary need. Her images allowed for women, in her time, to see that there was more to photography then just a portrait shot - also giving women a real stand alone place in a field, science and photography,…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essentially, the poem, “Annabel Lee” regards the narrator and a woman named Annabel Lee who profoundly love each other, and they live in a kingdom by the sea. Their love is complicated by Annabel’s death, but the speaker continues to love her, even after her death (Poetry Found 1). This connects to Poe’s life because he loved his own wife Virginia deeply (Poe/Bio 1). Consequently, he would be saddened by her death, similar to how the narrator yearned his wife.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The narrator in the story serves as a character who didn’t appreciate his life to a large degree that caused him to begin thinking negative thoughts and later, transitioning to the physical aspect of death. “It was open- wide open- […] I saw it with perfect distinctness- all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones […].” (Page 405) Coherently, Poe personified death several times, each, giving the audience a feeling of being in a “dark place” “[…] [T]he hellish tattoo of the heart increased.…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Mourning a loved one is a public face of grief we all have encountered in our life. The loss can be severe, and the sorrow is an indescribable pain no one will understand, not even yourself. Although the subject of death is frequently connected by either compassion or fear, Edgar Poe prospered in depicting a sensation trapped between the two. This emotional state replicates a grief so profound that it transforms into a mental insanity, a sensation of agony that has derelict one eternally. After reading this poem, I came to the assumption that Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” validates the sadness that death of a loved one can bring will live with you forever.…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe says, “The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world”. Although not many of Edgar Allan Poe’s works surrounded the idea of the death of a woman, most of his poems, if not all, portrayed death. He became renowned for his stories and poems about mystery and horror (Say Media, 1). The extent of Poe’s influence on our culture is immense. He in fact invented the modern day detective story that many people enjoy and cherish today.…

    • 2372 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Raven, the setting is more focused to the reference "a midnight dreary" and the "ghost" created by the fire 's dying embers create an alternate reality (Poe lines 1 and 8). The "midnight dreary" line shows a time in the space between two days. This space sets the narrator up to be between two worlds, before the loss of Lenore, and the time when he will have recovered from her loss. Both of the poems make references to souls. In Annabel Lee the narrator indicates that his and her soul were linked and could not be torn apart.…

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Annabel Lee Repitition

    • 78 Words
    • 1 Pages

    In the poem Annabel Lee Edgar Allen Poe shows repitition that declears Poes love for Annabel Lee by using there love is like no other. In the poem this maiden (Annabel Lee) she did not think about enemy one else but Poe. Annabel Lee only thought about Poe all day and all night. Annabel Lee only saw the good she saw no flaws or bad in Poe because she was focused on love that she had for him.…

    • 78 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagery In Annabel Lee

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The poem "Annabel Lee", by Edgar Allan Poe, shows the speaker's way of coping with the death of his beloved, which is displayed as obsession towards her and his judgment of the holy as guilty. The speaker justifies his obsessed love to Annabel Lee as stronger than any extraordinary force, and presents the holy as disgraced and malice for trying to separate them. First, the repetition of words, phrases and sounds emphasizes the speaker's obsession towards Annabel Lee. Her name is mentioned seven times, and the first time she is mentioned her whole name is capitalized as if she is the only one existing.…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The narrator than tells the reader how she was the fairest of them all and most radiant highborn indicate her family is wealthy and he talks about himself lesser than her. The theme of lost love comes into play when the narrator states that many were envy of what they had and his beautiful Annabel Lee was killed. According to the poem it says,”And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling-my darling-my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea,”(Poe 6). He revolves his life after her death around her he lays by her tomb and just thinks about her all the time. His forever soulmate is know gone and he has no drive to keep moving forward but to be stuck with her in her tomb by the sea since there is no other place he would rather…

    • 765 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Anna Howard Shaw Essay

    • 1939 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Anna Howard Shaw: an Iconic Social Reformer Anna Howard Shaw once said, “‘Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great cause more than life itself’’’ (National Women’s 1). Shaw believed in this quote and devoted her life to furthering the causes she believed in. Anna Howard Shaw was a minister, physician, suffragette, and world peace advocate. She dedicated her life to social reform and promoting the advancement of women.…

    • 1939 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The main method Poe uses to convey the feelings of grief and depression in the poem is through the use of symbols. The first symbol Poe uses in the poem is the narrator’s lost love Lenore who the narrator fixates on in his grief. Lenore is obsessed over throughout the poem as an idea rather than a person due to the fact that she is barely described beyond how she is “the lost Lenore” (“The Raven” 688). In the haze of his grief and depression, Lenore the person is forgotten and only the concept of Lenore is left in his thoughts. Over the course of the poem, Lenore ascends from being a dead woman to “a sainted maiden” on par with the angels of heaven through the lens of the narrator’s grief over her loss and unwillingness to let her go (“The Raven” 690).…

    • 1011 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays