In his most well-known poem, The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe builds suspense through the gradual descent of the narrator into greater and greater depths of madness. It is a type of suspense built upon both the fear of the unknown--in effect, what is the meaning of this late-night intruder (the bird)--and the terror inherent in an encounter with a strange creature that seemingly arrives with purpose but the purpose of which remains a mystery.
As The Raven begins, the narrator sits alone in his library or study, the walls lined with books, mourning the absence of "the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore." He is distraught and lonely. It is midnight, the "witching hour" during which manifestations of the supernatural are prone to appear, including demons. In Poe's literature, those demons tended to be internal, his narrators on or just-past the line separating sanity from its antithesis. The narrator has no reason to expect a visitor this late at night, so the tapping he hears outside his chamber door is wholly unexpected and discomfiting. The effects of this unanticipated development are apparent in the following passage:
"And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before; So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating ’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door— Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; This it is and nothing more'.”
The visitor, of course, is the titular raven, a large black bird that enters the narrator's chamber, precipitating the latter's descent into madness. Poe continues to build tension as the narrator describes this intruder in malevolent terms intended to evoke horror: "Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore . . ." As the narrator continues to plead with the bird for some indication of its meaning or significance, he becomes increasingly incensed with the bird's silence save for the repeated utterance of that one famous word, "nevermore." Note, for instance, in the following passage that narrator's exasperation and terror at the presence of the raven:
“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted— On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!” Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
The full meaning of the intruder is never revealed. The poem ends with the narrator exhausted and seemingly defeated. All of his attempts at drawing out of the bird the reason for its presence have failed. The raven remains perched on the bust of the mythological figure of Pallas, goddess of wisdom, while continuing to repeat the "nevermore" in response to the protagonist's queries. The reader is left to ponder the metaphysical significance of the bird, which may or may not represent Satan. There is, after all, no reason to suspect that the narrator is a particularly venal or vile person, or that the absence of Lenore is due to any violent act on his part. Yet, Poe noticeably leaves lying out there allusions to demonic presence and the uncertain fate of the narrator's soul.
The suspense in The Raven is the kind built upon fear of the unknown and of the evil that comes in the night. It was surely no mistake that Poe sets his poem at midnight, long associated with the appearance of ghastly and horrible creatures. And, the use of a large black bird only adds to the foreboding prevalent throughout this poem. The poem, after all, would not have succeeded if titled "The Parakeet," and featuring a tiny, brightly-colored bird such as those kept as pets by myriad innocent children. The solitude of the protagonist, the time of night, the darkness, the melancholy tone as he laments the absence of Lenore, and the intrusion of a large black, and presumably menacing, bird all establish a solid foundation for the suspense that Poe did succeed in injecting into his poem.
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