Edgar Allan Poe – Assassin Or Writer

Introduction

In our daily life murders happen every day in the whole planet. As humans we are not used to live this type of events frequently, because is a very delicate theme that we mostly try to avoid. This kind of theme where we can loss an important person by a horrible way, can impact us depending on the closeness of that person to us, if it was a friend, a familiar or something like that. The important thing is that this closeness and the feelings we had to that person can makes us feel guilty, pain or develop some psychological problems. As I am not an assassin I cannot truly define the feeling of murdering someone or the reasons of a murderer to take the life of a civilian, especially if that person is a close person of the assassin… So, what if we kill the person that we love? Do we feel the same as losing someone who do not even know, or pain consumes us?

This is the case of Edgar Allan Poe. In his work “The Raven”, he is visited by this type of bird, which most people relate it with dead and fear, and start to chat with it asking questions that were getting a little personal while he was asking more and more, causing himself pain. So, was Poe a psychopath that kill someone? Is the raven of his work a representation of the person he murdered? In this analytical essay I will prove this thesis statement with fragments of this work and some key phrases that got me to do this work.

Body

Just by starting, we know the type of atmosphere that Edgar Allan Poe is trying to introduce us with the description he makes. In his work he mentions us that he was in an apartment in a cold day of December on a late night reading old books to clear his mind. A creepy stage, no? This type of scenario can remind us to those typical nights where we get melancholic and sad watching movies and eating to forget something that is invading us. Well, in this case, Poe is trying to avoid the memory of someone by reading, but, who is that person? His mother? His wife? A friend? The truth is that although he does not mention explicitly who is he missing, he mentions us the name of a woman called “Lenore”. A girl taken by the angles as Poe said in the next fragment: “From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore — For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore”. With this fragment and the description of what was he doing that night we can deduce that he lost a very important woman in his life and he is trying to avoid his memory by distracting himself. But did she died by natural ways or was she killed by someone? By him? Here is where the raven of the story takes a special role. Before this raven enters in scene, Poe said that he felt his soul burning “Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning”. This can be related with the guiltiness and pain he must be feeling of knowing that he killed “that” person. We can affirm this statement with a scene that occurs after the raven’s appearance. When the raven enters to the house, Poe sadness is transformed into a smiling. Poe might had felt better for knowing that she was alive and present in a certain way. The narrator starts to chat with the raven which is interesting because the raven could answer but always with the same word “Nevermore”. A crucial fragment of the story that enforce this thesis statement is the next one: “By that Heaven that bends above us – by that God we both adore – Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore – Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore. " Quoth the Raven "Nevermore. "

In this fragment Edgar Allan Poe with a very painful and guilty soul asks the raven if he would be able to see again or get back Lenore one day and he receives the answer of “nevermore”. The raven knows what Poe has done for a strange reason or not too strange… After this drama, Poe asks the bird to leave his house in a very violent way. But the raven answers him again with “Nevermore”. The bird has arrived to stay and make him suffer descending him into his personal hell where he will suffer and think about he has done. Recapitulating, the raven which arrived at Poe’s house know about the pain that he was suffering, but why? The bird was Lenore, the person who Edgar murdered, a person who used to loved him. That is why at the beginning, Poe was reading and stressed on a December night. He was trying to forget or avoid the moment in which he killed Lenore, by assimilating what he has lost. After the arrive of the raven, Poe was feeling his soul burning but when Lenore arrived, a smile was painted on his face, he knew the raven was Lenore. After a long interrogation with the same answer, Poe ask Lenore if he will see her again. She answers him with “Nevermore”, she does not want to see him again after he has done. She only wants to see him suffer, that is why when Edgar asks her to get out of his house she stayed there to make Poe’s house his personal hell. This can be something logical if we have the in mind the crude past of Edgar Allan Poe. With two years he lost both parents, so he had to be adopted by a Richmond citizen, the relation with his father where traumatic and the loss of his adoptive mother was like the drop that spilled the glass for his crude psychology.

Conclusion

As I already said, in this poem Edgar Allan Poe is visited by Lenore the person he murdered, someone he used to love. This is explained with the difference of feeling he have before and after the arrive of her. Also, it can be explained with the fragment in which Poe ask her if he will see her again and the raven answer him with a nevermore. I think that this can be a different way to see this excellent work of Edgar Allan Poe, because at the beginning we only relate the raven with death but of who? That is the main question I made to myself, who died? Why did he die? After reading a lot of times the text and reading Poe’s biography I got to the conclusion that he murdered Lenore which could have been his wife, but why? Did she trick him? Did she lie to him? Or it was a psychological problem of Edgar Allan Poe? I think this is something that we will never get know…