Literary Analysis: The Chilling And Killing Of Annabel Lee

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The Chilling and Killing of Annabel Lee Love is generally thought of as a sweet or passionate idea. However, when a love dies, it can take on a much more menacing and terrifying aura. In “Annabel Lee,” by Edgar Allen Poe, we discover that when a perfect love perishes, the results can be absolutely terrifying. When the narrator loses his ideal love, he is unable to move on and resorts to cursing the heavens and even sleeping with his dead love. Poe is able to express this dark side of love that the narrator experiences through structure, symbols, setting, and imagery. Unrecognized until examination, the poetic structure that Poe employs is one of the most vital contributions to the ominous tone in “Annabel Lee.” The most obvious aspects of …show more content…

In the poem the sea represents the newfound chasm in the narrators life and the loneliness he feels because of it. The audience experiences the sea as Poe not so subtly uses “the kingdom by the sea” as a refrain, and then ends the poem with the narrator lying “in [Annabel’s] tomb by the side of the sea” (495). The adoption of the sea into every stanza helps the idea that the sea has become a bit overwhelming to the narrator become obvious to the reader. The use of the sea in the last line also assists the refrain by leaving the audience in shock that the narrator would sleep with his dead love just to escape the sea that is the empty pit left in him by Annabel’s death. Annabel Lee is the other major symbol in the poem. She represents love, because even though we have little concrete information about her, she is the only object related to beauty and happiness in the entire poem. However, even though she represents love, she is still able to lend the poem its eerie tone with her death as the source of the narrator’s endless lamentation. The symbols that Poe uses are a distinct factor that contributes to the tone of the piece, as they are always there to remind the audience of what the narrator is …show more content…

When taken into account as a whole, Poe manages to create a world for the narrator where the water, land and air are all filled with cruel or ghoulish beings. By doing this, the audience is truly able to see just how terrible of a position the narrator is in as he’s left with almost nowhere to seek respite from his torments. The “demons down under the sea” and the “angels in heaven” prove themselves to be the worst parts of the setting for the narrator because they act as the inescapable walls of his prison (Poe 495). He is stuck in between them, and although it seems creepy, the demons and angels make it so the safest place left for the narrator to go is actually Annabel’s tomb. The tomb offers him a place to reminisce on the times when his life was good and by doing this, becomes the only other significant component of the setting. Everything about the setting in Annabel Lee is quite scary to the audience and the only one who finds any sort of respite in it is the

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