Macabre In Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven

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As a child I had what amounted to a peculiar literary education. I was able to read early on due to the fact that my mother and grandmother taught me using fairly mature materials. These circumstances led me to become familiar with the poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe at a very young age. I found that even then the sinister setting, the flow and rhythm of the language, and the frantic tone appealed to me and my burgeoning imagination. “The Raven” is considered a classic poem and an exemplary example of macabre literature. Edgar Allen Poe quickly establishes a setting within his story by using words such as midnight dreary, weak and weary, bleak December, and dying embers to advance a dreariness in the atmosphere of his writing. He then instills a sort of frantic suspense by introducing words like fantastic terrors and by utilizing repetition. Poe also regularly reminds us of a lost loved one of the main character which adds to the macabre…show more content…
Starting with the mystery of where the tapping noise is coming from, growing with the presence of the raven and the questions surrounding its origin, and climaxing as the meaning of the word nevermore is interpreted as a prediction of the future and an omen of evil. During the entire poem the greatest and largely unresolved source of suspense is the constant fear of death and of what comes after. The buildup of the suspense and the frantic tone is what stands out most to me in the piece aside from the language itself. The beginning of the main character’s relationship with the bird is filled with idle curiosity quickly replaced by awe and eventually fear and anger. This is shown most strongly in the sentence “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!” You can truly see the misplaced awe, fear, and reverence in which the main character holds the raven, all in a single
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