Read (or reread) Poe's poem "The Raven" and either identify one of the issues it raises or compare the speaker to any of the characters fond in the stories we discussed in class. Be sure you differentiate, if needed, between the speaker and the poet--they're two different people.
After you read the poem, check out Christopher Walken or James Earl Jones reading it on YouTube--or, better yet, read along with one of them.
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To me, the speaker in "The Raven" shares many characteristics with Roderick Usher.
ReplyDeleteThe speaker in "The Raven" is dealing with the loss of a loved one and has turned to books in his loneliness to take away the sorrow of losing his beautiful love, Lenore.
"Vainly I had tried to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore"
The loss of a loved one and the loneliness felt due to the consequent isolation is similar to that of Roderick Usher after entombing his sister (maybe even more so were it not for the narrator in The Fall of the House of Usher).
Another aspect of the speaker that is strikingly akin to Usher is the increased ability to hear the faintest sounds. The speaker describes how he could hear a sound as if someone was "gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door," much like Roderick's ability to hear his sister trying to escape in the vault.
The speaker in "The Raven" also slowly falls into the traps of insanity and begins to ask the Raven questions to which he already knows the answer, but doesn't want to answer himself. This can be compared with Roderick's whole mentality toward the end of The Fall of the House of Usher and Roderick's approach to the effects of his sister's death.
--Stephen D. Beeston
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