Edgar Allan Poe Ligeia Literary Analysis

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“The unconscious is the storehouse of those painful experiences and emotions, those wounds, fears, guilty desires, and unresolved conflicts we do not want to know about because we feel we will be overwhelmed by them” (Tyson, 12). The love Ligeia and the author share have become too dark, and the darker it becomes, the stronger their love is. Throughout the short story “Ligeia” by Edgar Allen Poe, Freud’s psychoanalytical principles such as regression, the meaning behind death, and dream displacement all convey how protected the author is of the mention of Ligeia making their love unbreakable and enduring. The author regresses back to a state of mind where Ligeia existed in which he cannot stop his mind from wandering to that state. As humans, …show more content…

As a defense, he …show more content…

As Tyson mentions, “during sleep, the unconscious is free to express itself, and it does so in or dreams” (Tyson, 18). In this specific dream, Ligeia is used as a safe underlying figurer so he does not have to deal with Rowena’s death in a process called dream displacement. The underlying message here being displaced is the love and memories between Liegeia and the author. It is assumed that Ligeia died a very similar death as Rowena is in the process of. Since he loved Ligeia, she can be used as that “safe” person because he has been through it with her previously. The author states “the image of her who is no more”, making it believable that the author is dreaming because he exclaims how he is having a hard time remembering his dreams, which is normal for humans. (Poe, 1450) This scene adds to the idea of how the mind can alter a persons experience by using people who we felt safe with. As this dream is being dreamed, once again the love between Ligeai and the author is questioned. Ligeia has such a strong willpower over the author to the point where she is becoming alive and real in his dreams. He cannot get her out of his head even when he is sleeping. This just shows that even in his dreams, their love will be never ending even if he finds new wives. In addition, Tyson argues, “dreamers create all the characters in their dream…” (Tyson, 19). The author has become so

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