The Disturbing Atmosphere In Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

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Edgar Allan Poe's poems and stories are known for the eerie and unsettling feeling they give their readers. Among those pieces of literature, is The Raven. This poem was about a man sitting in his room, half reading, half falling asleep. He's trying to forget his lost love, Lenore. Suddenly, he hears someone or something knocking at the door. He calls out, apologizing to the "visitor" he imagines must be outside. Then he opens the door and finds nothing and no one. This freaks him out a little, and he reassures himself that it is just the wind against the window. So he goes and opens the window, and in flies a raven. The raven settles in on a statue above the door, and the man decides to talk to it. He asks for its name and the raven answers back, with a single word: …show more content…

The raven, though, doesn't change his story, and the poor speaker starts to lose his sanity.
Throughout the poem, Poe effectively creates this spooky and disturbing atmosphere. This poem follows the story of a grieving man and hears noises outside. This story brought goose bumps to my arms because of the unsettling atmosphere. But how does he do it? Edgar Allan Poe uses an assortment of literary devices such as alliteration, rhyming, setting and repetition to settle the uncanny mood. In The Raven Poe keeps on repeating the word, "Nevermore" which the raven kept saying. I don't know about you but I don't know any kind of species that know how to speak. This word keeps the reader at the edge of their seat as the story continues while they question what the meaning of the word means. The time is midnight in the poem and the speaker sits feeling weak and tired. He is almost asleep when he hears a tapping at his bedroom door and thinks that it must be a visitor. Poe

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