What Does Bradstreet Represent In The Raven

In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, he uses symbols to describe and allude to death. In the poem, he mourns the death of his young love, his wife, referred to here as Lenore. The most obvious symbol is the raven. The raven comes into the poem and begins to tear away at his psyche. The power inflicted upon the narrator by the raven is symbolic; the raven’s darkness symbolizes death, and so death turns into, not only an idea for the narrator, but an intruder constantly reminding him of his eventual demise. In ancient times, people believed that ravens were the messengers of the god of death as well as the omen of terrible things that are yet to happen. If the raven comes to someone’s house, then death has come to someone in that house. “Quoth the

For Puritan writers, death was not necessarily desirable, but faced with an unfaltering sense of devotion towards their God. Bradstreet demonstrated this sentiment in her poem, as she describes her life as not her own, but God’s. Much like her house that was burned down by God’s will, her life is also God’s to give and take. If God decides to take her life, she would willingly accept it, for she knew that she would find joy and happiness in her Creator’s arms. [3] For Gothic writers, Edgar Allan Poe in particular, death is haunting and cruel, and leaves him with inexplicable grief. His life was plagued by deaths of women he loved and admired, all of whom were struck by deadly illnesses and died swiftly and suddenly. His wife contracted tuberculosis, “the disease that had already claimed Poe’s mother, brother, and foster mother.” [6] His grief is reflected in his poems, as many of them have a recurring theme of young, beautiful women who were taken from the narrators, much before their time. He also explores the idea of an afterlife in his poems. In The Raven, the narrator asks the raven if he will ever see Lenore again, only to have the raven say “Nevermore” to him over and over again. In Annabel Lee, the narrator believes that his and Annabel Lee’s love for each other were so strong that it surpasses the jealousy of angels and the physical barrier of death, hinting that he believes they will meet again in the afterlife. In Eldorado, the knight follows his dreams into death, and the afterlife. Death in Gothic writing is different from the Puritan’s look at death. Death is not accepted with open arms, and it is focused on the grief that is caused by death. In the two hundred years between Puritan poets and Gothic writers/poets, perceptions of death had changed from a quiet acceptance to a loud rejection of it. Rather than