“The Raven” is a poem released in 1845 by American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe. It ominously details the story of a lonely man, grieving for his dead lover, and his midnight encounter with the raven that gives the poem its name, a shadowed bird that only utters the word “nevermore”. Interpretations of the poem, now considered a classic of American literature and poetry, vary greatly from individual to individual. Many have come to believe that the raven in the poem, is, in fact, a real raven that comes to visit the man one fateful night, while many others believe that the raven is no more than a hallucination, caused by the man’s deep depression and grief. It is worth noting that Poe would often write about lonely men that had lost their wives. Poe had lost multiple important women throughout his life, usually to tuberculosis (often referred to as “consumption” in that time period) and it was quite common for him to express his pain and grief through his short stories and poetry. The protagonist longing for his lost wife, Lenore, is a continuous theme throughout the poem. The poem, like mentioned before, was written in 1845, a few years prior to Poe’s eventual death. The raven in this poem is almost like a personification of the man’s depression. Rather than allowing himself to grieve and being able to accept the death of Lenore, he tries vainly to forget her immediately, but this just makes the grieving process worse. Depression can often feel like something else is controlling the victim, and in this poem our protagonist is being controlled by his unrealistic mind. The raven is symbolic of our protagonist attempting to confront his own mental state and proving this action fruitless. The raven is a representation of a depressed, isolated man’s self reflection. Our protagonist has but one goal; to forget Lenore. However, the “raven” is self aware, and knows that he will never forget Lenore. His inability to realize that he should be grieving is causing him to miss and think about Lenore even more. One of the lines reads, “Other friends have flown before. <...> My hopes have flown before.”(Poe, 1845, “The Raven”) This seems to imply that the raven is, indeed, a thought. He wishes to lose this dark, intrusive thought that has plagued him since the loss of Lenore, and his constant commanding of the obscured fowl to leave supports this more by showing that he, indeed, wants to forget this awful thought more than anything else in the world. His wishes to reunite with Lenore, to be at peace, to go to Heaven…all broken by himself due to an inability for acceptance. The raven is not just a personification of the man’s depression, but also his grief, stagnancy, anger, and most of all, his memories of Lenore. The man could possibly be mentally ill, as well (further supporting the idea that the raven is a hallucination), which would explain how stagnant he really is. Not allowing themselves to grieve is a common sign of having a low self esteem or low self confidence. Grieving is important in recovering from the loss of someone close to an individual, and it is very possible, and most likely, that The Raven is a harsh, ominous example of what can happen to a person if they do not allow themselves to perform this action.
