Symbolism In Poe's Poem The Raven By Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe’s Poem “The Raven” shows a dark reflection of lost hope, death and loss of a loved one. This poem goes through the emotions with the young man who has lost a loved one, and tries to distract himself from the hurt and sadness by reading books. These books turn out to be no help because of the nightmares of one visitor, the raven. Poe uses elements like symbolism, tone and imagery to enforce his theme of sadness and loss of his loved one throughout the poem. The poem displays imagery and characters in two different aspects, light and darkness. Everything mentioned in the poem can be placed into the light or darkness category. An example is when Lenore is described as radiant, this attaches to the world of light with the angels …show more content…
Poe uses symbolism to create a strong tone for the poem. Midnight and December both symbolize something, the end. The hope of something new to happen. Midnight symbolizes the end of the day and start of a new day where things can get better. December symbolizes the end of the year, getting to start fresh and do things differently from the year before. Another thing that shows symbolism is where the man is placed throughout the poem. He is all alone, locked away in a chamber until he hears the tapping on his chamber door he opens the door expecting to find a visitor but he finds nothing but darkness. The tapping continues and when he opens his window a raven flies into his chamber. The raven stays perched on top of the statue of Athena. The man asks the raven for his name, he replies “nevermore”. The raven repeats that one word and only that word throughout the whole …show more content…
The raven is a black bird which connects it back to the darkness, sad tone that the Poe portrayed throughout the poem. “And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, and the map-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor..” The description of how the raven looked haunts the narrators and express the demonic nature of the bird. The narrators shows superstitions about the meaning of the raven saying nevermore. The use of imagery shows the madness of the narrator and the bird. The raven is not just a bird, but its the representation of death, the loss of Lenore and the loss of the soul of the narrator. The ravens only answer when something is asked him questions is “nevermore”. This lets the speaker know he is always there just like the constant memory of Lenore. The raven is ultimately representing the loss of Lenore. The lesson the raven teaches is showing that you cannot dwell on the death of a loved one, you need to come to terms with the death and move one. The poem showing the loneliness of the man talking to the bird, this is how he is coping with the death. Even though the man knows he can only say this one word, he is still torturing himself by asking him questions. The answer from the raven will always be “nevermore”. By the end of the poem the narrator has lost his mind, giving into the sorrow of