Sadness and winter have always been associated with each other.
The darkness of December nights is low-spirited than usual. Such is the
scenario in this poem. The poet “Edgar Allen Poe” created a perfect image of
the darkness through words. One can feel the graveness of the environment by
reading this poem.
Edgar Allen Poe, an American writer, was famous for his gothic
literature. His work would make his reading experience the dread in his
writings. Moreover, he is also considered the father of detective stories. Poe
stands out among his contemporary writers for his versatile way of writing and
writing on exceptionally shady themes. Other than that, critics also suggest
that most of his works are inspired by his daily life incidents. Here, let us
talk about one of his famous poems “The Raven”.
As mentioned before winter is associated with sadness, so we can
also agree that gloominess reciprocates darkness. The poem is set up in quiet
surroundings where the narrator seems to doze off while reading a book.
Suddenly, there is a knock on the door and he jolts up in his position. This
creates a terrifying scene as he is not expecting any visitors. But he just
tells himself that it’s “nothing more”.
He remembers the same incident from last December and remorse the
loss of Lenore, who appears to be his beloved. Now, here it is quite obvious
that he lives alone. The emptiness is both in his house and inside his heart.
He has no one to share his feelings with or to spend time with. So, he indulges
himself in reading books. There is no one when he goes outside to see who
knocked at the door. This also might be only his subconscious making things up.
Then there is a knock at the window and he goes there only to find
a raven. He asked him his name and surprisingly he replied “Nevermore”.
Throughout the poem, he only says only this one word. The narrator assumes that
perhaps the raven learned this word from his master. But the same person gets
agitated and sad when he replies the same word to his questions.
The questions were about his late beloved. He was hoping that
maybe this bird had some message to carry from heaven or maybe it could tell
him something about her. But all he faced were disappointments. This clearly emphasizes
the idea that the bird itself signifies hopelessness. He answers “nevermore” to
everything being asked. This reflects the grief of the narrator and how he is
all alone with no hope of happiness and light to come into his life.
