Essay On Symbolism In The Raven

Death is a funny thing. Death can bring people together or tear them apart. It can be seen as a start to a better life or as the end to life. But in the case of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, the death of a loved one brings darkness. In The Raven, Poe creates a dark and morose feeling though his use of grief and madness that is inflicted by death; Poe develops this feeling by employing his creative use of imagery and through the use of Christian and Greek religious symbolism.

Imagery in poetry has the incredible capability to transform the mind into a new world of the authors making, powered by the experience and imagination of the viewer. Thought the Raven, Poe provides the material needed for the transformation of his piece into a world of

a man who is overcome by grief and overwhelmed with feelings of morose and darkness. In the first line, he depicts a “midnight dreary” and a man (the narrator) who sits pondering it a state of weakness and weariness. We have a dull lifeless night that is shrouded in darkness and a man that is worn down both physically and mentally. This organic imagery in the first line sets the emotional feel for the piece of work. Furthermore, the narrator reveals that this dreary night was also set in December. This brings more thoughts of darkness and gloom due to the nature of December as being cold, dark and gloomy. Alongside organic imagery, Poe uses both visual and auditory imagery through the form of the raven. The Raven is used as a way for the Narrator to express his emotions of grief, loneliness, and despair; however, Poe gives the raven one line: Nevermore. The repetitive response of “Nevermore” from the raven only enhances the feeling of despair as well as showing how the death of the narrator’s loved one has driven him into madness as his temper flares at the bird.
Symbolism and allusions also play a vital part in developing the feelings of morose and darkness in The Raven.

Poe uses Greek mythology in the eighth paragraph, and again in the seventeenth, as he talks about the night’s plutonian shores. Pluto is the Greek god who is the ruler of the underworld. The underworld which is described as perpetually dark and a place where many suffer for eternity could be a symbol of how the narrator is very depressed and tormented since the loss of his love and views the world as very dark and a place of suffering. The shore comes in reference to the river Styx, in which souls are carried from the earthly world to the shores underworld. These two are used together to portray the idea that the narrator is in internal torment, caught in the grief and pain that come in the passing of a dear one. The raven itself is a symbol. However, there are two different meanings that it could symbolize. First, the raven is often a symbol of death, sadness, and loss. Here it could be used as a symbol of the narrator’s own emotions. Second, the raven could be alluding to Greek mythology as the raven is the messenger bird of Apollo, the god of prophecy. Here the raven could symbolize divine intervention from higher beings, and could be seen as bringer of knowledge that condemns the narrator to his life of darkness and

torment.
Alongside Greek mythology, Biblical symbolism is also used to show the pain and grief are taking a toll on the narrator In the fifteenth paragraph Poe alludes to a searching for healing and closure by using the line "is there no balm in Gilead" referring to the eighth chapter of Jeremiah. In the Bible, the Balm of Gilead is a perfume that is used as a cure. So as the line is declared, we can feel the desire the Narrator has to rid himself of the feelings of despair and loneliness.
Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven imposes a vast sea of emotions onto the mind. By directing the emotions of loneliness, anger, suffering, and grief with the tools of imagery and symbolism;
Poe is able to construct an overarching feel of darkness and morose in the depiction of narrators world that we have created in our minds.