The Raven

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.) 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