IMAGES AND SHADOWS IN POE´S ‘THE RAVEN’

Helio Rodrigues Rocha

The poet is the namer or language-maker, naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after essence.

Emerson Essays - Emerson R. W.

Doubtlessly, Edgar Allan Poe is the poet of macabre in the American Literature. In the poem The Raven, as in many others of his works, Poe (1809 – 1840), one of the most read and commented American poet from the nineteenth century, creates an atmosphere of darkness and sorrow that involves the reader from the first verse to the last one. Through symbols as raven, melancholy, angels, demon, Lenore, Seraphim, shadow, soul, God, Heaven, Aidenn and so on, the reader enters in a region that is peopled by these divine creatures. In this way, we can understand that the narrator adores his state of mind. The speaker’s state of soul is so hard that he is transformed in another person – the man who is guilty for the Lenore’s death.

So, this “new character” produces verses that express his melancholy with creativity, criticism and consciousness. This new character – we say character because this is a narrative-poem - expresses his melancholy upon the loss of someone beloved so much – Lenore. The fear, which invades his soul when he is at home nearly napping, presents like that: “thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before”. The power, pleasure and glory that came to him by his state of soul are greater than everything or everyone. This state of soul was able to create a reality into another reality.

The poet expresses, then, the anxiety and fear before the unknown. This is what every man, woman and child fell in the presence of something unknown, specifically when the animal, object or experience is hard and dangerous. This fright becomes superior and can drive anyone to death, to madness and to the exclusion of the society where he/she has been lived. (Or would it be died?) This fright has a shape of a raven and can symbolize the devil, the sorrow or the death: “Prophet said I – thing of devil – profhet still, if bird or devil!” The doubt is present and it brings the fear together. The raven’s appearance is so ugly and in many cultures, as we have read about, it symbolizes death. His color, voice and image are condemned by pure men that follow the Holy Bible, for example. The raven is black, then it can be compared – in the common sense - with death or devil. In this way, I believe that it does not make sense speak about the raven without making allusion to Puritanism in North American, which have influenced Poe’s works. In order to make the argument clear, it is important to say what we understand for Puritanism.

According to Nenevé (1998, p. 15),

The term “Puritanism” was applied to denominate people who searched a “pure” reformation of the Church of England in the seventeenth century. Puritans broke from Anglican Church because they did not accept moderation in strictness and severity in the community. Of course they received influence from many theologians and religious philosophers. One aspect of the Puritan doctrine, for example, is the manichaeism which has its origin in Dualism (Body versus Soul, Heaven versus Earth…).

Following this direction, we can visualize some images in the poem. As we assert in the first paragraph, many words distributed in the stanzas show a man divided between what is “real” and what is a dream. (Or would it be a nightmare?) For sure, he wants to find a way to go back to the past and meet his beloved woman. The chat between him and the raven is marked by anxiety for news of his lost lover, whom “the angels named Lenore”. When he asks the raven: “By the Heaven that bend above us – by that God we both adore - /Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,/ Is shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore? Clasp the rare and radiant maiden, who the angels named Lenore?” it is why he beliefs the raven is a prophet and must know where is Lenore. The reader is driven also into his dream. So, the image of the raven is very suggestive: it can be a bird and too a devil. He is a messenger of Heaven or Hell. The bird changes into our mind as an image of the ugliness, madness and can represent a Devil’s messenger as the speaker thinks: “Get thee back in the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

It is possible that a religious reader thinks like that and gets mad because of the raven’s blackness. So, he can understand it as a signal of evil things, a demon’s messenger. Involved in this atmosphere, the reader makes a deep trip to Hell. To reading the poem in the original form in a loud voice, for example, is to be driven to darkness, sadness and almost death. So, when the poet calls the raven “evil” he knows what is burning into his body - in his spirit: “Doubting dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before”. Every time the raven murmured, whispered or spoken its words, the state of mind, imagination and darkness change the poet’s soul. The sound produced by term “nevermore”/“Lenore” creates an image of sorrow in poet’s mind. It is like an harpoon transfixing his heart. He becomes very unhappy “weak and weary”. In fact, after the loss of his beloved woman he had no found cheerfulness in his life; he was addicted in sorrow and guilty. In this way, we make a question: Into darkness can the man see or imagine another reality? (Maybe through a seeing mind man can see other realities). We create our own reality every day surely. For some men that are not fixed in “real” life, the day after day can be created according to their thoughts, their aspiration and desire. We can, truly, maintain that thinking in our mind and the reality will be like that thinking.

It is good to say that anyone builds himself/herself only through his/her experience of life. To live is to die day by day. Death looks for man every time and everywhere. In the poem, the speaker is suffering so much and when he saw the bird above his chamber door, he thought the bird was a messenger. According to the speaker it symbolized the prophet or the devil. Then the speaker was lost too, as all human being is – condemned to death unless this human being is able to write a good work. The speaker of the poem analysed lives in deep depression. For the observant reader, the shape of the raven also seems a lord or a lady in black, as says the verse: “with aspect of lord or lady, perched upon a bust of Pallas”. It means that he knew the truth. The bird was wise and so, it knew everything about the speaker’s life. In this perspective, impression and imagination drove the speaker’s thinking and he should feel guilty for all.

If we pay attention to life – as it is so fast and dangerous - we can see and make a comprehension that to get frightened is very important. Fright can save man. Yet what we don't see can die ourselves. But, in fact, we must control our excess of fear without know the thing, the object or the experience. New things must been investigated. Only the knowledge must be in front of our eyes, mind and soul, because our brain and mind are always in evolution if we use our life as a passage to the knowledge and to wisdom.

Edgar Allan Poe, I mean, the author as a function where discourse breaks up, was fascinated by fear. His subjects were decay, perversity, murder, haunting spirits and so on. His power of impression is very interesting to mankind. It can teach us so much. He spoke about love and loved so deeply that any reader feels terror when reads his tales, poems, etc. Through the puritan view, Poe shows us his style of writing. Impressionism on Literature has an excellent prophet/poet. So, to read Edgar Allan Poe is travel through mankind’s mind and find out that in every man sleeps a monster. That one word pronounced by the raven means so much: repetition can makes a man crazy, but can teaches too: “that one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour, nothing farther then he uttered”

The alliteration produced by repetition of the end of some word – if said I a loud voice – is great. If we read the poem in Portuguese this repetition disappears. Nevermore, anymore, Lenore are some examples of the sonority of darkness, sadness and death. In the speaker’s mind these sounds brought remembrance of her wife, or her lover. To feel like a poet is different to feel like any ordinary mortal. The poet is a sayer, a namer, because he feels and lives as a prophet. As write Nenevé (1998, p. 11), “the poet is thus a prophet, a divine man who absorbs the feelings and the needs of common men. He expresses what men need to express”. According to Emerson (1980, p. 265), “the man is only half himself, the other half is expression”. In the society, generally, he is not seen as a stupid man, on the contrary, he is a visionary and can help others men to see the truth through he own eyes. He can predict many things. He is a superior being and can evoke others voices, visions and brings great things to the society.

The travel, the vision and the message sent by the speaker is wonderfull and powerful, because can change many ways of see the human being as a good thing created by a God. Live without control, fear or in a dangerous way, can finish human life in the Earth. So, fear is necessary for everyone. Fight against some fears is very important too, but live without fear can speed up the death.

Far from being difficult, the poet helps and advices with a simple language. In fact, it is necessary to want to understand his messages. To play with the words is a good way to say what he wants to say to the people. In every society there are poets. If he is not discovered by the others, he becomes know in another time, but he does not die anymore. His word will be forever in other time. The poet always will be recognized as an intelligent man because he is a genius. If many poets are not read and discussed is because are not his time to come to light.

The figure of a raven is excellent, for example, to rewrite the idea about black people and white people, bad and good, beautiful and ugly. It is necessary to be awareness of this way to teach our community. In every animal, man or anything, there is beauty and power. The use of dualism in the world must change. In this way, the raven can bring anything that it will be always a raven, but the man is different. Every human being is important, alive or dead. The power of education must be used to save people from the war and from living a miserable life.

To conclude this text, it is important to say that the poem “The Raven” was translated to many languages. In Portuguese there are than one, but it is necessary to read his original production. As we said above, the sonority can create an atmosphere of impressionism. This is one of the good things in the poem. Poe, in a brilliant way, evokes this image and created a different way of feel sadness and happiness. Finally, love is suffer, but life is the answer.