The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe

Themes

Love: He loves a woman named Lenore. The only thing he wants is to be back with her. Natural World:

• He imagines natural forces around him.

• Dark night.• The sound of the wind.• The bird.

Supernatural: • Afterlife.• Existence of God.• The narrators is talking to a

bird.

Themes

Madness: the narrator sounds as if he has had a rough life. He talks with a bird.

Symbolism

Lenore: she is the main focus of the speaker's thoughts. She represents beauty, truth, hope, it's and idealized love.

The Raven: represents darkness, death, the bearer of ill. It is a magical sign of ill omen.

Symbolism

Nepenthe: Ancient drug used to remove pain or suffering.

Midnight:

December:

Darkest part of the night. Witching time.

Winter. Symbol of death. Nothing lives in winter.

Norse mythology

God Odin had two ravens:

• Hugin (thought)

• Munin (memory)

Greek mythology

'A bust of Pallas'

Pallas Athena:Greek Godess of wisdom.

Roman mythology

Pluto: Roman God of underworld.

Shore: shore of the underworld.

Night: symbol of death.

'Nights Plutonian shore'

Biblical References

‘is there balm in Gilead?'

Jeremiah 8:22

Balm: medical resin. Represents hope, peace, the end of pain. The narrator needs to be heal from the lost of Leonor

Kind of salvation

Biblical References

'Aideen'

Reference to the Garden of Eden

Use the word to ask if Lenor was accepted in paradise.

Alliteration

‘while I pondered weak and weary‘

‘surcease of sorrow - sorrow‘

‘silken sad uncertain‘

‘Doubting, dreaming dreams‘

‘never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting'