Blog Set 9

The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe is all about a man who is going through depression on a dark December night. Poe jumps right to the point in the beginning, he is giving us that dark type of atmosphere. It reminds me of those nights where you're tired and maybe a little depressed, but you can't go to sleep at all? You start over thinking everything in your life and you just end up feeling worse? Or even if you’re reading a scary book or just finished watching a horror movie and the world just seems to get dark? That's exactly where Poe wants to put us and how he wants us to feel. He is basically half awake and starts to hear a noise which he refers to it as a “visitor”. He even starts to see things when his fire is going out and the “Dying embers” are making shadows that looks like ghosts on the floor. He is depressed because his loved one Lenore has passed away. He shouldn’t be home up late and reading books because then he will be setting himself up for depression. If his loved one passed, he should be trying to get his mind off of things even though it’s really hard too. Poe goes to the door for the “visitor” and there’s nothing there. This reminds me of a scary movie scene where the character hears something at the door and when she opens it, nothing is there. He starts to go insane when he starts asking the bird more and more questions but all the bird says is “Nevermore”. The bird is sitting on a bust of Pallas which is another name for the Greek goddess Athena, She is the goddess of wisdom. Maybe he wants us to think that the bird is wise? Pluto is also said, he rules the underworld. Poe gets angry because all the bird says is nevermore and he tells the bird to go back to where he came from but he ends up not moving.

Annabel Lee has many similarities from The Raven. The character is still depressed about losing a loved one but Annabel Lee starts differently. Poe talks about heaven and angels which was also mentioned in The Raven. It actually starts off as some type of fairy tale about how he fell in love with her and they were both children. He made it seem like they weren’t even teenagers and they were younger than that. He expresses that that even if they were children their love was very strong, stronger than people who were older than them. Even though she dies, the speaker says that their love is still there and will always be. At the end it says that he actually lays down next to her dead body in the tomb which is kind of creepy.

Update: I finally understand why Poe wrote so depressing and dark in most of his stories. He had a very hard life that I wouldn't even know how to handle myself if I was him. He really did have his reasons for being the way he was. When he was born, both of his parents died. Then he was adopted and both of his foster parents ended up dying also.  His foster mother was the only mother figure he had ever had and she ends up dying of tuberculosis. Shortly after his foster father ends up remarrying which makes Poe very angry. Most of the women in his life died of tuberculosis. Everyone he ever loved basically just died and he ended up being an alcoholic and using drugs. He writes The Raven while his wife is dying so we could see where the depressing story came from. In the raven, when the bird says “Nevermore” it means that people never get their lost ones back. Annabel Lee was written after his wife dies to show their undying love. The Raven was written to forget about everything while Annabel Lee was written for him to remember. Both Lenore and Annabel are angelic. His death was the most mystery thing ever and I really wish I could find out how it happened. Its crazy how he was found dead in someone else’s clothes at a bar.