how is the poem "the raven" an exapmle of how the human person is impelled by the human thirst for self torture? Please help me!!!

-- Anonymous, February 10, 2000

Answers

In "the Raven" the mainperson is continuosly on the run to escape his big grief: losing that rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore. Intellectually he acknowledges it, but doesen't allow homself to feel it. So in fact he is on the run for the truth. That the raven enters and tells him that there is no escape. But the mainperson tries to find 1000 ways to find a different meaning in the words. He tries so hard that he probably believes it himself. By posoning the moment of confrontation he extends it.

OK, let's rethink: the autor must have fellt and lived the complete process of the loosing of hope in detail. Because every detail can be found. And the result of his selftorture he brought to paper (for which we have to deeply thank him)

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2000

The narrator in the poem surmises fairly quickly that the raven can utter only the single word "nevermore" and yet he persists with questions and comments that, when answered by that word, fill him with anger and despair. In that sense it is not the raven that torments him but his own actions - a classic example of self-torture.

-- Anonymous, July 19, 2000