Essay On The Imagery Of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Dimmesdale struggles with the guilt and shame of his sin and wishes to ease his pain. However in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, the narrator’s emotions for his long lost love overtake him and he finds it difficult to release these deep feelings. Through the use of dark imagery, both Hawthorne and Poe use the supernatural to provoke their characters’ fanatical instincts as they seek to alleviate their distress, ultimately suggesting that individuals in these circumstances must be fully acceptant of reality to overcome their anguish.
Hawthorne uses light and dark imagery to emphasize Dimmesdale’s preoccupation with his sin and his desperation for redemption. The Romantics’ absorption with unexplainable
The narrator starts by setting the scene on “a midnight dreary” (Poe 1-1). This establishes the somber attitude that continues throughout the poem. On the “bleak December” the narrator finds himself reading and wishes for the “books [to] surcease sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore/[…] nameless here for evermore” (2). The narrator wants relief for the pain of the loss of Lenore. Oddly, he looks towards his books to “surcease [the] sorrow.” Furthermore, Poe’s italicization of “here” emits hope for the narrator. He suggests that his “rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore” will not be with him in this world, but is waiting for him elsewhere and this gives him aspiration (2- 11). As the night proceeds, the darkness and silence of the room frightens the narrator. “The silence was unbroken […]- And the only word there spoken was the whispered word ‘Lenore!’”(5- 28). Once again the narrator finds the ghost of Lenore in the darkness. In response the narrator “murmur[s] back the word ‘Lenore!’” (5-29). Her anomalously spoken name alarms the narrator and “[his] soul within [him] is burning” (6-31). All the reminders of Lenore overwhelm him and he desires for his “heart to be still a moment” (6-35). At this climactic moment, a Raven flies into his room
In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale sustains a tremendous amount of pain and attempts to constrain his guilt on the search for solace, but Hester keeps a hold of him in reality. The Raven 's narrator however, materializes a part of his conscience with the thought that it would help him reach serenity, but his absorption with this phantasm draws him further away from actuality. To truly achieve the state of alleviation within the supernatural one must be immersed in reality and have an acceptance of both