An Analysis of the Third and Fourth Stanzas in Poe's Poem The Raven
These two stanzas start at line 25 of the poem, they are the third and fourth stanzas. The persona has heard a knocking at his door, but no one was there. At this point in the poem, his fear and excitement are increasing as some voice keeps repeating the word "Lenore." It is not clear whether he actually hears some other voice speak the word, or if he just interprets the echo after he himself says it as belonging to someone else. Most likely they are his own words, but in his imagination he is engaging in a verbal exchange with another person. After this exchange, his soul is burning, and though the footnote in the book interprets this as meaning he is embarrassed about his false assumptions about where the knocking came from, I think it more likely means that his soul is burning in anticipation of something more, something greater that is about to happen to him than he initially thought. Again he hears a tapping, and this time he goes to the window instead of the door. He is eager to find out what is out there, because the noise is so mysterious to him that he feels like he must investigate it. At the same time, though, he seems a bit reluctant because the last line of the second stanza says, 'Tis the wind and nothing more!" It seems as though he is hoping that it is only the wind, because he is afraid of what else it might be, but he already senses that it is not just the wind.
The whole passage seems to be a preparation of what is to happen in the next stanza - in which the raven appears. His whole self is focused on that event in anticipation, which is reflected in his language. He first enters into a dreamy state, in which his emotions of fear, yet also hope, take over. This is revealed in the verbs, "wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming." His mind is obviously in a very active state, as can be seen by the list of verbs. They are a mixture of positive and negative feelings.
As Washington stated in his book, Up From Slavery, "I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth, but at any rate I suspect I must have been born somewhere and at sometime" (29). But, in reality, Booker Taliaferro Washington was born on a slave plantation in Franklin County, Virginia on April 5, 1856, where his mother worked as a cook. Washington's father, who he knew little of, was suspected to be a white man who worked on a near-by plantation. Growing up on the slave plantation, Washington lived in the most destitute surroundings. His "home" was a fourteen by sixteen square foot log cabin that he shared with his mother, brother, and sister. He spent most of his time on the plantation doing odd work, such as cleaning and working at the mill, since he was too small to do much more.
Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Virginia in 1865. Washington experienced first hand the atrocities that African-Americans were facing, living an unimaginable childhood in which he did not own a pair of shoes until the age of eight (Moore 16). After Washington was emancipated from slavery following the Civil War, He went on to receive his education at the Hampton Institute in Virginia. At Hampton, Washington received training in industry and agriculture (Gibson). Washington was a ...
As a slave child, Booker worked at the salt furnace industry at the age of ten. After which, he worked as a houseboy for a white man’s family. While working at the salt furnace industry, Washington was exposed to the existence of numeral numbers (Washington 1). The first numeral number he recognized was
In Hamlet, William Shakespeare presents the main character Hamlet as a man who is fixated on death. Shakespeare uses this obsession to explore both Hamlet's desire for revenge and his need for assurance. In the process, Shakespeare directs Hamlet to reflect on basic principles such as justice and truth by offering many examples of Hamlet's compulsive behavior; as thoughts of death are never far from his mind. It is apparent that Hamlet is haunted by his father's death. When Hamlet encounters the ghost of his father, their conversation raises all kinds of unthinkable questions, for example murder by a brother, unfaithful mother, that triggers Hamlet's obsession. He feels compelled to determine the reliability of the ghost's statements so that he can determine how he must act. Ultimately, it is his obsession with death that leads to Hamlet avenging the death of his father by killing Claudius.
Edgar Poe uses these rhetorical devices not only to contribute to the theme, but also to make it possible for the reader to experience the same hopelessness and isolation the narrator feeling. “On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before” (line 10). In this simile the narrator is comparing his hopes to the bird’s ability to fly. He is saying that the bird will eventually fly away as did all his hope when his mistress died. Another example is when Poe writes, “Suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping” (lines 3-4). The narrator is comparing the tapping of the raven with that of a human tapping, which reveals that the character is hoping at a chance that it is Lenore. As the poem goes on Edgar Allen Poe describes, ”All his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming” (line 105). This line is comparing the raven’s eyes to a demon’s. Here, he is no longer seeing the raven as an angel but as a demon only there to deliver confirmation of his worst nightmare. Metaphors are also used several times throughout this poem to personify the raven. “But, with mien of lord or lady” (line 40). The author includes this metaphor to allow the reader to recognize that there is something unique about the raven. “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil prophet still, if bird or devil (line 85). The narrator is comparing the raven to either a prophet or the devil. At
A former slave who had become a successful farmer, and a white politician in search of the Negro vote in Macon County obtained financial support for a training school for blacks in Tuskegee, Ala. When the board of commissioners asked the head of Hampton to send a principal for their new school, they had expected the principal to be white. Instead Washington arrived in June 1881. He began classes in July with 30 students in a shanty donated by a black church. Later he borrowed money to buy an abandoned plantation nearby and moved the school there. By the time of his death in Tuskegee in 1915 the institute had some 1,500 students, more than 100 well-equipped buildings, and a large faculty.
Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most famous work of tragedy. Throughout the play the title character, Hamlet, tends to seek revenge for his father’s death. Shakespeare achieved his work in Hamlet through his brilliant depiction of the hero’s struggle with two opposing forces that hunt Hamlet throughout the play: moral integrity and the need to avenge his father’s murder. When Hamlet sets his mind to revenge his fathers’ death, he is faced with many challenges that delay him from committing murder to his uncle Claudius, who killed Hamlets’ father, the former king. During this delay, he harms others with his actions by acting irrationally, threatening Gertrude, his mother, and by killing Polonius which led into the madness and death of Ophelia. Hamlet ends up deceiving everyone around him, and also himself, by putting on a mask of insanity. In spite of the fact that Hamlet attempts to act morally in order to kill his uncle, he delays his revenge of his fathers’ death, harming others by his irritating actions. Despite Hamlets’ decisive character, he comes to a point where he realizes his tragic limits.
The above results demonstrate the practicality of my rule-based system. I ended up creating a fast, scalable framework and also designed many examples of implementation. However, I found it nearly impossible to create a general framework. In each case, I was forced to alter it to the specific situation. I am a middle school student, and although I gave my best, I was unable to create a truly general framework. The creators of CLIPS were engineers at NASA who had worked on AI for their entire lives. They succeeded in creating a general framework but ended up creating a bulky, slow, sprawling mess. This technology has many applications, many of which can benefit the world. My framework can save companies millions upon millions of dollars and also can help save the lives of helpless elderly citizens.
Taking revenge against his enemy can be a difficult task for young Hamlet, especially when the circumstances and conditions he is under require him to reevaluate his morals of life and soul. The delay in Hamlet’s revenge of his father’s death is caused by three main reasons: he is under strict and almost impossible guidelines laid out by the ghost of his father, King Hamlet, he is afraid of death either suffering it or inflicting it on someone else, and his lack of reasoning in committing a murder that he did not witness himself.
Hamlet gets agitated with himself once he sees that he is unable to make a decision about killing Claudius and it is not until he speaks with the captain from Fortinbras’ army that he sees how to change this. He learns about their plans to invade the Polish for nothing but a worthless piece of land. Hamlet now becomes more determined to carry out his actions after seeing the ambition of Fortinbras and how easily he made his decision. Hamlet wishes he could be this decisive and cunning and he now sees how it is done. From this point onwards Hamlet has made up his mind that “from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth.” [IV, iv, 67]. With his new found way of thinking, he later speaks with Horatio saying that "There 's a divinity that shapes our ends rough hew them how we will." [V, ii, 12]. Hamlet shows after he sees how easily decisions can be made that fate plays a part in everything around him and that no one has absolute control. He has to let go in order for things to fall into place the way they are meant to be and all he can do is the best of his ability. ”The readiness is all.” [V, ii, 216]. His way of overthinking is over and has changed his entire outlook and perception on life and his own
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a tragic play about murder, betrayal, revenge, madness, and moral corruption. It touches upon philosophical ideas such as existentialism and relativism. Prince Hamlet frequently questions the meaning of life and the degrading of morals as he agonizes over his father’s murder, his mother’s incestuous infidelity, and what he should or shouldn’t do about it. At first, he is just depressed; still mourning the loss of his father as his mother marries his uncle. After he learns about the treachery of his uncle and the adultery of his mother, his already negative countenance declines further. He struggles with the task of killing Claudius, feeling burdened about having been asked to find a solution to a situation that was forced upon him.Death is something he struggles with as an abstract idea and as relative to himself. He is able to reconcile with the idea of death and reality eventually.
Edgar Allan Poe?s ?The Raven? is a dark reflection on lost love, death, and loss of hope. The poem examines the emotions of a young man who has lost his lover to death and who tries unsuccessfully to distract himself from his sadness through books. Books, however, prove to be of little help, as his night becomes a nightmare and his solitude is shattered by a single visitor, the raven. Through this poem, Poe uses symbolism, imagery and tone, as well as a variety of poetic elements to enforce his theme of sadness and death of the one he loves.
In Hamlet, the protagonist Hamlet faced many dilemmas that led to his transformation throughout the play. The people around him and the ghost of his father dramatically affect him. Seeing his father’s ghost had changed his fate and the person he had become. The path he chose after his encounter with his father’s ghost led to his death.
As illustrated through his speeches and soliloquies Hamlet has the mind of a true thinker. Reinacting the death of his father in front of Claudius was in itself a wonderful idea. Although he may have conceived shcemes such as this, his mind was holding him back at the same time. His need to analyze and prove everythin certain drew his time of action farther and farther away. Hamlet continuously doubted himself and whether or not the action that he wanted to take was justifiable. The visit that Hamlet recieves from his dead father makes the reader think that it is Hamlet's time to go and seek revenge. This is notthe case. Hamlet does seem eager to try and take the life of Claudius in the name of his father, but before he can do so he has a notion, what if that was not my father, but an evil apparition sending me on the wrong path? This shows that even with substantial evidence of Claudius' deeds, Hamlet's mind is not content.
The perfection of Hamlet’s character has been called in question - perhaps by those who do not understand it. The character of Hamlet stands by itself. It is not a character marked by strength of will or even of passion, but by refinement of thought and sentiment. Hamlet is as little of the hero as a man can be. He is a young and princely novice, full of high enthusiasm and quick sensibility - the sport of circumstances, questioning with fortune and refining on his own feelings, and forced from his natural disposition by the strangeness of his situation.