WHAT is it that make is so "scary?" I've never understood why it's supposedly one of the darkest poems ever written. To be honest, I find it a little hard to grasp the concept. Can anyone explain it to me? What is the poem actually about- him losing his mind?
Anonymous
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Poe wrote the poem as a narrative, without intentionally creating an allegory or falling into didacticism.The main theme of the poem is one of undying devotion. The narrator experiences a perverse conflict between desire to forget and desire to remember. He seems to get some pleasure from focusing on loss. The narrator assumes that the word "Nevermore" is the raven's "only stock and store", and yet he continues to ask it questions, knowing what the answer will be. His questions, then, are purposely self-deprecating and further incite his feelings of loss. Poe leaves it unclear if the raven actually knows what it is saying or if it really intends to cause a reaction in the poem's narrator. The narrator begins as weak and weary, becomes regretful and grief-stricken, before passing into a frenzy and, finally, madness.
The raven perches on a bust of Pallas, a symbol of wisdom meant to imply the narrator is a scholar.
The raven perches on a bust of Pallas, a symbol of wisdom meant to imply the narrator is a scholar.
Poe says that the narrator is a young scholar. Though this is not explicitly stated in the poem, it is mentioned in "The Philosophy of Composition". It is also suggested by the narrator reading books of "lore" as well as by the bust of Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom.
He is reading "many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore". Similar to the studies suggested in Poe's short story "Ligeia", this lore may be about the occult or black magic. This is also emphasized in the author's choice to set the poem in December, a month when the forces of darkness are believed to be especially active. The use of the raven — the "devil bird" — also suggests this.This devil image is emphasized by the narrator's belief that the raven is "from the Night's Plutonian shore", or a messenger from the afterlife, referring to Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld (also known as Hades in Greek mythology).
Poe chose a raven as the central symbol in the story because he wanted a "non-reasoning" creature capable of speech. He decided on a raven, which he considered "equally capable of speech" as a parrot, because it matched the intended tone of the poem.Poe said the raven is meant to symbolize mournful and never-ending remembrance. He was also inspired by Grip, the raven in Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty by Charles Dickens. One scene in particular bears a resemblance to "The Raven": at the end of the fifth chapter of Dickens's novel, Grip makes a noise and someone says, "What was that – him tapping at the door?" The response is, "'Tis someone knocking softly at the shutter." Dickens's raven could speak many words and had many comic turns, including the popping of a champagne cork, but Poe emphasized the bird's more dramatic qualities. Poe had written a review of Barnaby Rudge for Graham's Magazine saying, among other things, that the raven should have served a more symbolic, prophetic purpose. The similarity did not go unnoticed: James Russel Lowell in his "A Fable for Critics" wrote the verse, "Here comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge / Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge."
Poe may also have been drawing upon various references to ravens in mythology and folklore. In Norse mythology, Odin possessed two ravens named Hugin and Munin, representing thought and memory. The raven also gets a reputation as a bird of ill omen in the book of Genesis. According to Hebrew folklore, Noah sends a white raven to check conditions while on the ark. It learns that the floodwaters are beginning to dissipate, but it does not immediately return with the news. It is punished by being turned black and being forced to feed on carrion forever. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, a raven also begins as white before Apollo punishes it by turning it black for delivering a message of a lover's unfaithfulness. The raven's role as a messenger in Poe's poem may draw from those stories.
Poe also mentions the Balm of Gilead, a reference to the Book of Jeremiah in the Bible: "Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?"[24] In that context, the Balm of Gilead is a resin used for medicinal purposes (suggesting, perhaps, that the narrator needs to be healed after the loss of Lenore). He also refers to "Aidenn", another word for the Garden of Eden, though Poe uses it to ask if Lenore has been accepted into Heaven. At another point, the narrator imagines that seraphim (a type of angel) have entered the room. The narrator thinks they are trying to take his memories of Lenore away from him using nepenthe, a drug mentioned in Homer's Odyssey to induce forgetfulness.
Hope it helps!!!! Or are you more confused now?
Anonymous
The concept behind "The Raven" is the horror that comes from addiction and self-infliction. Poe hated morals; he never wanted to write anything to pound a lesson into the reader. Instead, he tries to illustrate things, much like a painting. In "The Raven" he's trying to show how the speaker keeps beating himself up, continuing to ask questions of the raven while knowing full well what the answer will be each time. The idea is to show how we are all naturally addicted to pain.
That motif, combined with the dark eloquence of its content and the slightly paranormal hints makes it quite dark.
Sptfyr
It's not so much the words in the poem that makes it scary. It's the tone of the poem and the meter. It's the way the sound of it makes you feel and how the hairs on your arms and neck stand up when you hear it read properly. You can rent audio tapes of it being read from public libraries...at least I hope you can. You need to hear it read the way it was meant to be read and then you will understand.
Anonymous
the raven keeps instigating the loss of his los lenore making the man go mad