Friend Or Foe In The Illusion Of Wisdom

In the mind of allusions, wisdom may be something of a question when brought about by someone’s melancholy. Misery has a tendency to cloud ones judgment when it comes to rational thinking. This is exactly what Edgar Allan Poe portrays in his poem, “The Raven.” Poe’s poem was published in three different papers in 1845, within the timeframe of not two months (Miller 126). John H. Ingram believes the story to be a possible “hoax” because the question of what is or is not real comes to life. Though Ingram’s idea of the meaning in “The Raven” may be correct, a connection can be found that will lead to the idea of pure insanity for the narrator (2). Symbols are the fabric of connections between two objects: the object in a story and the one that comes to mind. In the narrator’s eyes, this raven symbolizes not only his sorrow for the loss of a loved one, but also the question of friend or foe, making these allusions much more surreal.

The raven symbolizes how lonely and devastated the character is from losing his beloved Lenore. The narrator repeatedly speaks of the raven as an “ominous bird of yore,” as if it has some connection to the past. He is hopeful that this bird can bring news of Lenore. Jake Fling wrote an analysis on “The Raven” which points out that the narrator sees the bird as some “higher power coming to speak to him” (Fling). He goes to the extremities of hallucinating this bird to be there either as a prophet sent from God, or to end him. Both conveying a message being, “Nevermore.” In the poem the narrator calls the bird both “Prophet” and a messenger of “the Night’s Plutonian Shore.” These two, in different cultures, are symbols of ancient gods. Now, the question that haunts him is nevermore shall he live, or neverm...

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...hes upon to the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, and believes this to be a sign. In his mind the raven is the bringer of wisdom and so the narrator hallucinates the smallest thoughts into overly dramatic ideas of what this ravens presence means. His lack of wisdom throughout “The Raven” creates a more surreal story with his loss of a loved one, the god of prophecy, and the god of death.

Works Cited

Fling, Jake. "Literary Analysis." The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.

Miller, Perry. The Raven and the Whale; The war of words and wits in the era of Poe and Melville.. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956. Print.

Poe, Edgar Allan, and John Henry Ingram. The Raven: With literary and historical commentary,. New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1972. Web. 7 Apr. 2014

Powell, Barry B. World Myth. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2014. Print.