Feeling Melancholic

As soon as we read the title of the poem, “The Raven”, we can automatically deduce that the central figure of the poem is a raven. While reading it, various excerpts and verses of the poem not only establish the raven as a symbol of the poem itself, but also give it metaphorical value. With the verse, “Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore’” (The Raven, 48), it is explicit how Poe gives the Raven characteristics of a human being, hence, employing personification. By giving it a human characteristic of speech, the significance of the Raven can further be interpreted as being a sort of omniscient voice, or the voice of conscience.

Since throughout the poem the narrator is apparently becoming mad while mourning the death of his love Lenore, the Raven serves as that metaphysical voice that he hears. Not only his repeating onomatopoeia of “nevermore” takes a significant role, but also the Raven’s eyes, “And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming”, making them a metaphor by comparing them with the demon’s eyes. And through this, it makes the Raven be the source of all the suffering and grief that the narrator is experiencing. But also, with all the repetition of rhyme, sound consonance, and alliteration, Poe is able to reproduce linguistically and visually the melancholy and depression that every verse transmits.