The Raven by Edgar Poe - Assignment Example

Evaluate Sound Devices Reread lines 79–84. Identify the sound devices used in this stanza, and give examples of each technique. Which of these devices do you find most compelling or effective? Explain your answer.Poe uses rhyme and repetition very effectively, as well as, alliteration in the “…unseen censer Swung by Seraphim…” (Poe 441 79-80). However it is likely Poe’s use of repetition that creates the real power behind the tale. There is a perpetual beat to the rhyme and flow of the piece.  8. Make Judgments Consider the speaker’s changing responses to the raven and the conclusions you drew about his state of mind.

What does the speaker’s conflict with the raven suggest about the behavior of people who are struggling with grief? Support your answer with details.The speaker at first reacts well to the raven because it offers a momentary distraction from his pain and loss. However, the raven’s single response “Nevermore,” frustrates the speaker because the one thing everyone who experiences loss wants is answers. Why was the one they care for taken from them? What do they have to do to get them back?

He then becomes antagonist and hateful to the raven. He then sees the raven, rather dramatically, as a disciple of evil, put there to frustrate and further mock his grief. Suddenly the raven ceases to be an angelic messenger of distraction, but a “…thing of evil”. People suffering from grief and loss are not logical or entirely stable, which is why the speaker ended up in an argument with a bird in the first place.