In The Raven, the speaker of the story goes through many different mood classes throughout the short story. One of the main causes of these mood swings, a little raven that was taught to say nothing more than “nevermore.
” The speaker in the short story is also trying to forget about his lost love Lenore. All these factors contribute to the different emotions throughout the story, such as fear, happiness, and anger. When the poem starts out the speaker is reading while he hears a tapping at his door. When he first hears the tapping he becomes scared and lessens his level of fear by telling himself its nothing more than someone at his door. When the speaker first opens the door there is nothing there that could possibly cause the tapping to be made. With his lost love on his mind, he first believes it is Lenore, which could not be possible because she is dead. The speaker states that she is dead by saying: “ For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore- Nameless here forevermore” (Poe 467.
- Thesis Statement
- Structure and Outline
- Voice and Grammar
- Conclusion
) The fact that the speaker does not see anyone in the hallway where the tapping is coming from adds to his level of fear. The main causes of the speakers fear is his concentration on his lost love and not knowing where the tapping noises originate from. The speakers second emotion throughout the poem is happiness.When the speaker hears the tapping coming from the door after he checked by the door he becomes more at ease, believing that is nothing more than wind. When the speaker opened the window he was surprised when a raven flew in to reveal where the tapping originated from.
The speaker soon came to the conclusion to believe that his visitors name was “Nevermore.” Through further investigation the speaker believes that the bird replies “Nevermore” because it is the only word the bird was taught. The speaker displayed his emotion of happiness do to the fact that he believed that the bird was sent from God to distract him from his grief of Lenore.
“ Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore…”( Poe 468).The speaker feels happy due to the fact that for those quick couple of minutes talking with the bird his mind is drawn from feeling the grief.