In Poe's poem The Raven, in line 101, it says, Take they beak from out my heart. I don't understand the meaning of that phrase.

-- Anonymous, November 10, 2002

Answers

What about something like 'ouch, it hurts'....

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2002

I think it means that he is hurting from Virginia and the beak represents his pain. and he does not want to feel the pain anymore so he wants it removed.

-- Anonymous, November 11, 2002

As a carrion bird the connotation is a shade gruesome. Remember at the end the bird is sitting, waiting over the prone body of the narrator. But mostly it is the message of repeated despair that is crushing the poet,the bird taking all life and hope out of the poet.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2002

The narrator is being defeated by his own insecurities, unable to accept the death of Lenore, not knowing if her soul is free, or where her spirit may be. The symbolic Raven provides a slow and painful death for the narrator, and the beak (or the sharp contemplation of the unknown and the fears it brings) is the weapon probed into his heart. When the narrator bellows "take thy beak from out my heart", he is desperately asking the Raven (or death) to elicit the answers that exist beyond the grave. Answers humanity has been forever searching.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 2002