Dark Themes In Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

Everyone who enjoys dark themes in literature and poetry surely heard of Edgar Allan Poe's works. "The Raven", being one of the best examples of Poe's dark and grim creations perfectly presents that kind of theme through its tone, settings and - most importantly - lyrical speaker. The atmosphere and setting of the poem couldn't be gloomier. Poe creates an image of a cold, dark December night. We all know how depressing winter can be, when everything is covered by the heavy snow and darkness comes early. It created an atmosphere that's both frightening and mysterious. We can see the main character is sitting alone in his room. The embers in the fireplace are slowly dying and creating dark shadows dancing on the floor. He is also the narrator and his narration tells us the story about a strange encounter he had. We meet the narrator when he's weak and …show more content…
Although in the comparison to the narration and the setting, the tone is a bit more indirect. The tone doesn't remain the same through the length of the poem. Even though its overall theme is grim and dark, we can distinguish a few different stages. In the first and second stanza the tone is melancholic, but still quite calm. It quickly turns into curiosity mixed with fear, when the narrator keeps hearing the tapping on the door and window. The next stage is fascination when the speaker states: "Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling" (Poe 43) and also tells us that he feels blessed by the visit of the wise raven. The next tone turns us back to the darker themes, it becomes more aggressive and dangerous. At the end everything seems to calm down, leaving us with the most lonely, miserable, depressed tone and the narrator who’s all hope has been taken away. In his poem "The Raven" Poe took us on a journey through a depressed mind and used everything that at his disposal to make it as dark and melancholic as