The Raven is perhaps Edger Allan
Poe's most famous work. Written explicitly to appeal to audiences of the time, it made
an immediate impression and although it never brought Poe fame and fortune directly, it
has become a classic of the genre and and a staple of horror fiction, film, and
music.
The titular Raven, which speaks the single word
"Nevermore," come to bother a nameless narrator who tries to rid himself of it, but
ultimately fails and must accept its presence.
The obvious
symbolism is that of death: the narrator mourns his lost love, the beautiful Lenore, and
the bird is possibly the most physical representation of the "black wings of death"
present in myth and story. A raven is a carrion-eater, feasting on dead bodies, and in
speaking the morbid and depressing word "Nevermore" allows the narrator to project his
own depression and pain onto it. He could ask different questions or interpret the word
in a different way, but the narrator's pain in such that he asks questions designed to
further his cycle of self-loathing.
There are other
symbolisms; one is the possibility of mental illness: in his misery, the narrator
demands that the bird -- which is a bird -- answer his questions
sensibly, and the bird responds in the only way it knows how. The narrator briefly
entertains the truth:
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so
aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and
store..."
but swiftly
descends into madness, finally attributing all his personal ills to the bird and its
supposed supernatural powers:
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s
that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on
the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the
floor
Shall be
lifted—nevermore!
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