ilderment that the narrator and consequently Poe himself are experiencing; the narrator ponders whether he will see his wife in the afterlife.After Virginnia’s lingering death, Poe tried to relieve his grief by drinking. A parallelism is formed in “The Raven” between the condescending actions of the raven towards the narrator and the taunting of alcohol towards Poe. The raven condescends that Poe will never see his lost love again when uttering, “forget this lost Lenore,” in line 84. Alcohol taunts Poe into ceaseless depression and caused him to have a life-long problem with alcoholism, which eventually led to his death. In a similar manner to which alcohol explored Poe’s inner devastation, the raven brings out the narrator’s innermost fears that he will never see his Lenore again.The articulation of language through the use of the raven and it’s refrain is also utilized to produce the melancholic tone in “The Raven.” In the poem it is important that the answers to the questions are already known, to illustrate the self-torture to which the narrator endures. Repetition of “Nevermore” baffles the narrator into a victimized state of mind. Articulation of “Nevermore” also emphasizes the features of the word itself, specifically its meaning. Through focusing on the raven and its raspy “Nevermore,” an effect is developed that highlights a gloomy and depressed state of mind. A refrain is used throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” to impress upon the developing tone of melancholy. The refrain accomplishes this emphasis through its creation of an awareness of the inevitable; realizing that the raven’s response to any question will be “Nevermore,” the character asks about his lost love, the “rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore” (line 96), perhaps on purpose to experience fur...
