¶ … Ligeia and Annabel Lee
"Ligeia" and "Annabel Lee"
Through his short stories and poetry, Edgar Allan Poe was one of the forefathers of Gothic literature in the United States. Through his unique writing style, and his interest in the macabre, Poe established a literary canon that had the capacity to intrigue and terrify his audiences at the same time. A recurring theme among Poe's short stories and poetry is the death of a beautiful woman, the eternal connection that the narrator of each respective work had with the deceased woman, and the supernatural. Both "Ligeia," a short story published in 1838, and "Annabel Lee," a poem published posthumously in 1849, integrate these elements into their narratives.
In "Ligeia," Poe writes about the death of not one, but two women. In the short story, the narrator experiences the loss of two of his wives, Ligeia and Rowena Trevanion. It is clear through the description of the women that the narrator is much more attached to his first wife than his second. In the short story, the narrator pays much more attention to describing his first wife than the second. In fact, the descriptions that he uses to illustrate Ligeia's many features are poetic. For example, when the narrator describes Ligeia's eyes he states, "For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique…The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black, and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint" (Poe 655). What is ironic is that the narrator is able to recall almost every minute detail about Ligeia's appearance and character, however he admits, "And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have never known the paternal name of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who became the partner of my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom" (654). On the other hand, the narrator describes his second wife as "the successor of the unforgotten Ligeia -- the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena of Trevanion" (660).
In the short story, Rowena is the antithesis of Ligeia. Moreover, it can be argued that one of the only reasons that the narrator married Rowena is because he was under the influence of opium, which he was using in order to ameliorate his grief over losing Ligeia. It is especially disturbing the manner in which the narrator reacts towards his second wife. Inexplicably, the narrator "loathed [Rowena] with a hatred belong more to demon than to man" and his "spirit fully and freely [burned] with more than all the fires of [Ligeia's] whenever he his "his memory flew back…to Ligeia, the beloved, the august, the beautiful, the entombed" (661).
Additionally, the narrator did not quit his opium habit after marrying Rowena, which caused him to hallucinate on several occasions. These hallucinations, regardless on if they are fueled by the narrator's opium habit, appear to be supernatural in nature. For instance, when giving Rowena some wine to drink, "which had been order by her physicians," the narrator contends, "I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid" (662, 663). The narrator continues to say, "I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediately subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for the worse took place in the disorder of my wife" and by the fourth night, he "sat alone, with her shrouded body, in that fantastic chamber, which had received her as [the narrator's] bride" (663). The narrator, despite the fact that he has just lost Rowena, is overcome by a "thousand memories of Ligeia" (663).
In his grief-filled stupor, the narrator claims to see the corpse of Rowena transform into Ligeia. Through Ligeia's transcendence and the narrator's inability to emotionally and psychologically let go of Ligeia, it can be argued that there is an immortal and transcendent bond between Ligeia and the narrator. Not only is he haunted by every minute detail of her being, but he is constantly thinking of her, mistreating Rowena because she is everything that Ligeia is not and believes that Ligeia has come back to him after Rowena's death.
The poem "Annabel Lee" also uses the death of a beautiful woman to drive the narrative. Poe establishes that the narrator feels that there is an eternal and unbreakable bond between him and his beloved and that no entity, whether natural...
Despite the narrator's desperate pleas, the raven says nothing else than "nevermore." Moreover, the narrator now finds himself unable to get rid of the bird and states, "And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting/on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;/and his eyes have all the seeming of a demons' that is dreaming,/and the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on
Not only was Annabel Lee's love strong, but she was beautiful as well. This notion of beauty and love are linked in a continuous dream-like state for the speaker. This speaker's first wife was able to make him experience a type of love that he had never known before her or since knowing her. Even though Annabel Lee is gone, the speaker tells us that she is still a
Such evidence as there is can be taken up at a later time. But of one thing we can be sure. If Virginia was the prototype of Eleonora she was not the model for Morella or Berenice or Ligeia."(Quinn, 255) These feelings can also be inferred from Poe's letters to Mrs. Clemm, Virginia's mother: I am blinded with tears while writing this letter-- I have no wish to live another hour.
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