How Does Edgar Allan Poe Use Figurative Language In The Raven

697 Words2 Pages

“The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe is a poem that is praised for descriptive language and Poe’s use of mystery to engage the reader. Poe uses an unreliable narrator to tell his story, ones of Poe’s most notable writing styles. Early in the poem we learn the narrator is very tired. Due to the late hour and the narrator before the poem takes place, it is called into question whether the speaker is awake or dreaming. Throughout the poem Edgar Allen Poe takes readers through a complex journey of a man being reminded of something he has tried so hard to forget. Edgar Allen Poe in “The Raven” uses figurative language, imagery, and tone to develop the theme of constant reminder of what we try to forget.
“The Raven” is a poem filled with figurative language and Poe uses this figurative language to deepen the sense of an eerie winter night. Almost immediately the poem starts with assonance and internal rhyme. “And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. / Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow” (8-9). The repetition of the ‘o’ sound adds to the mystery for the same sound is used in ghost and other words we attribute with mystery. Poe also uses …show more content…

In “The Raven” phrases such as bleak December and dying ember are used to depict a dark, cold winter night. “Ah I distinctly remember it was in the bleak December; / And each separate dying ember wrought it’s ghost upon the floor” (7-8). Poe uses tone to reinforce a quiet, lonely feeling to the poem. This loneliness is reinstated as the poem continues and the narrator becomes more and more lonely and misses his love even more. “Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken. / ‘Doubtless’ I say, ‘what it utters is its only stock and store/ Caught from some unmerciful Disaster” (61-63). This use of intertwining tone and imagery strengthens the tone of the

Open Document