Citizenship and Commitment in The Raven


In this essay, I am going to show the relationship between the values of citizenship and commitment with the early 19th century poem, “The Raven” written by the famous American author, Edgar Allan Poe, that with his particular gloomy and dark style, he describes a situation in which a character is driven into insanity because an constant feeling of obsession.

However, before developing the main topic, we should know first the meaning of these two values. A commitment is define as the willingness to give your time and energy for doing something that you believe in, and Citizenship is define by the Cambridge dictionary as the state of being a member of a country, and having legal rights because of this. Now we have clarify these concepts, let’s begin.

At the beginning of the story, a man (the narrator) said that ones he had experience a situation in which he had fell into insanity, and he begun to describe it, but he did not said his name, neither where he came from. This means that since the very beginning we do not found a manifestation of the value of citizenship, because the narrator did not specifies if he made part of a specific country.

Then, he begun to describe a little bit more the setting telling it was at midnight of December in which he was reading some old books. Here is where we found for the first time the value of commitment, because he was doing something he likes, he wanted to do and he is taking part of his energy and the time he supposed to be asleep for reading these olds books. Later the narrator begun to listen some napping, and tapping coming from the door, he thought it could be his neighbors, some visitors or his dead beloved, who came constantly into his mind, like a kind of obsession. Therefore, he opened the door, and the outside was empty, there were no signs that could corroborate that someone was there, and then the narrator decide to close the door and return to his activity.However, the narrator had in mind the idea that it could had be Lenore´s spirit who had made this sound, and he begun to debate in his mind if he should stay with Lenore´s memory forever or if he should forget he. And is here were we found another manifestation of a commitment, because the narrator spend his energy and his time thinking in Lenore.

Later, the narrator begun to listen the same tapping and napping, but in the case the noise came from the window, so he decided to opened it. In that moment a Raven entered and he porched himself at the bust of Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, at the top of the chamber door. To the narrator these means that the Raven was a kind of intellectual and spiritual been, whose mission could be been his friend, giving him some news about Lenore, or even that bird could be Lenore, so he ask, but the ebony bird answered all his questions with one word, Nevermore. Slowly, the man begun to go deeper and deeper into the insanity, because he was waiting for the raven to change his answer into some idea that could bring back Lenore. And is also here were we can see again a manifestation of commitment, the narrator is thinking again in Lenore, and he is crossing the line of sanity, because nobody who has an minimum of consciences will speak with a bird. At last, the narrator suffered a kind of collapse meanwhile the raven was looking at him.

What we can conclude is that only the value of commitment if found at the story, and that the value of citizenship is not.

Comentarios

Publicar un comentario

Entradas populares de este blog

The Devil & Tom Walker

The Witch of the Candy Path

MY LIFE