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Figurative Language In Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven

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Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” uses a dismal tone to compliment the story’s melancholic theme. In the poem, the narrator mourns the death of his wife, Lenore, which eventually leads to his demise. Moreover, as the narrator enters the beginning stages of the dying process, swinging in and out of reality, he explains the dreadful experience. To enhance this story even further Edgar made strategic use of the following figurative languages: symbolism, repetition, and rhythms. When the narrator began to drift in and out of reality, the first stage of death, he describes the noises of something knocking on his chamber door, and anxiously he asked who it was but received no answer. “ Tis some visitor; tapping at my chamber door- only this and nothing more.” The sounds of apparently something knocking at his door symbolized the angel of death coming to retrieve his soul. However, to further increase the use of …show more content…
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore – What this grim, ungainly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking “Nevermore.” As the narrator sits in his velvet chair, the readers see that the narrator is beginning to ponder for himself what the true meaning is behind the Ravens bleak replies. But with the increase of rhythms, the reader continues the poem with an eerie sensation. In conclusion, Edgar does a marvelous job with applying these figurative languages, which is only a handful of the figurative languages he did use. “The Raven,” in my opinion, is an excellent example of what a person can do with figurative languages once he/she masters how to use them. Additionally, if a person fails to understand how to use figurative languages their chances of writing a good story becomes, Quoth the Raven “

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