Student Carter

Professor Burns

ENG 241

12/8/19

Symbolism Within the Short Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

Among the many writers of Gothic fiction who have come and gone since the birth of the

genre, Edgar Allan Poe is perhaps the best known and most widely read. This is a result of not

only his ability to contrive vivid images and inspire a wide range of emotions within the minds

of his readers, but also because of the often dark yet relatable themes which are presented in his

work. While many of these themes are easily construed from his writing without a great deal of

critical thinking, some themes within Poe’s stories and poems are only revealed upon a closer

inspection of the elements they contain. Some of the most prominent elements that Poe uses to

portray these themes are symbols, and an understanding of these symbols and the ideas they

represent can do a great deal to broaden readers’ understanding of the meaning and purpose of

Poe’s works.

In many of Poe’s short stories and poems, themes concerning insanity versus rationality,

death, and obsession are forefront and reoccurring. While these ideas are often repeated

throughout the majority of his writing, a closer look at the symbols included in each separate

work, as well as how these symbols relate to each other, is key to revealing the true implications

of the piece. For example, the most apparent themes in “Ligeia”, a short story by Poe, are grief

and obsession, as the narrator mourns and obsesses over Ligeia, his lost love, throughout the

story. While it is easy to summarize the ending of this tale as a vision concocted by a mourning
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man driven mad by grief, a dive into the symbolism used extensively through the entirety of

“Ligeia” gives readers a much clearer picture of its’ message.

The central symbol contained in “Ligeia” is Ligeia herself. Or, more accurately, the

idealized version of Ligeia that is described. The way that she is portrayed seems near inhuman,

as the narrator states, “[i]n beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an

opium dream – an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wilding divine than the phantasies which

hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughter of Delos” (Poe 1163). He also describes her

beauty as “exquisite” and “faultless” (Poe 1163). He also describes the intelligence of Ligeia,

which he says was “immense – such as I have never known in woman” (Poe 1165). Critic

Georges Zayed argues that Ligeia exists solely to serve Poe’s message about the frustrations of

learning (Zayed). This vision readers are supplied with of Ligeia is a vision of perfection, which,

of course, is not a realistic portrayal of any character, fictional or otherwise. What this

description is, in truth, is the idealized version of a lost loved one, seen by a character who is so

immersed in pain and grief that his mind can only produce an image of an individual worthy of

it. Thus, this unreal version of Ligeia is symbolic of idealized love, and of the unattainable

standard that those who can no longer commit fault create.

The other significant symbol within this story is that of addiction. The narrator develops a

dependence on opium after the death of Ligeia, which seems to become increasingly more

intense throughout the story and the events that take place with his second wife. The narrator

states that he was “habitually fettered in the iron shackles of the drug” (Poe 1169). Interestingly,

every time he mentions this addiction it is coupled with a mention of Ligeia and his memory of
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her. This makes it simple to deduce that the narrator’s addiction to opium is a symbol of his

addiction to his idealized memory of Ligeia. These uses of symbolism serve to bring about an

interesting interpretation of the ending in which Lady Rowena’s corpse is reanimated as a living

Ligeia, which is that only in death could the narrator’s second wife compare to the idealized

version of Ligeia which he had concocted.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” is another of Poe’s short stories that exemplifies his use of

symbolism. The two most easily recognizable symbols contained in this story are the eye,

specifically the eye of the old man who is murdered, and the heart. The use of both the eye,

generally used as a symbol of clarity and knowledge, and the heart, typically seen as a symbol

for passion and emotion, in this story is perhaps indicative of the conflict in the narrator’s mind

between rational thinking and irrational feelings.

Aside from this, there are several other symbols connected to the old man’s eye. In the

narrator’s description of the eye, which he states is his reason for killing the old man, he says,

“[h]e had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it” (Poe 1187). The vulture is

used often as an image in Poe’s work, which is no surprise as it is most often associated with

death. The narrator also makes the statement that the eye is pale blue and covered with a film,

most likely indicative of blindness or cataracts. This lack of sight is possibly symbolic of the

narrator’s own inability to see his actions rationally.

The old man’s heart also plays an additional role symbolically. The narrator first hears

the old man’s heartbeat right before he murders him. He describes the sound as “a low dull,

quick sound – much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton” (Poe 1188). He
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hears the sound again when the police arrive, and it grows louder the longer the narrator is in

their presence. It appears that the heartbeat is truly an indicator of the narrator’s own emotion,

first of his fury, then as a mirror of his growing guilt, as the policemen play the figurative role of

his conscience. Finally, this leads him to confess.

In addition to his short stories, Poe’s poetry is strongly driven by symbolism. In his most

celebrated poem, “The Raven”, there are a multitude of symbolic references. The setting in

particular is quite symbolic. The poem is set in December, a month generally viewed as cold and

connected to death, as nature descends into winter. The events in the poem take place at

midnight, the darkest point of the night, which is also often associated with death. A final figure

of this manner of symbolism is the raven itself. The raven, like the vulture, is a bird seen as a

bringer of grief and death. In this case, while it is possibly a figure representing the coming of

the narrator’s death, it appears to go beyond that. In the poem, the narrator asks the raven, “[t]ell

this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, / It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom

the angels name Lenore” (Poe 1208). The raven, as is its’ pattern throughout the poem replies,

“[n]evermore” (Poe 1208). In Georges Zayed’s essay on symbolism in Poe’s poetry, he discusses

the symbolism of the raven, and quoting Floyd Stovall, he says, “the tragedy lies deeper than

that. […] Aesthetically it lies in the knowledge of the irrevocable decay of beauty, and

philosophically it lies in the growing certainty as the poem progresses that there is no life after

death” (qtd. in Zayed 13). So, in this poem, the raven appears to not only an omen of death, but

an omen of the revelation of the narrator that there is no life after death. This only serves to

increase the narrator’s grief as it indicates he will never again see his deceased love, Lenore,

who, like Ligeia, serves as a symbol of lost, idealized love.

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“Annabel Lee” is another popular poem by Poe which is titled after a woman used as a

similar symbol. Annabel Lee is described only as being “beautiful” and as having “lived with no

other thought / Than to love and be loved by me” (Poe 1208-09). Thus, she seems to be yet

another figure of a lost love which has been idealized. This is a symbol used prevalently by Poe,

and it has been suggested that this is an expression of his emotions relating to the death of his

wife, Virginia (Zayed). The other prominent symbol in this poem is the sea. The sea is a

powerful force of nature, and it’s sudden and unpredictable movements can easily be equated to

those the sudden and unpredictable nature of death. The repeated mention of the sea, especially

in association with the sepulchre of Annabel Lee, along with the narrator’s mention of “the

demons down under the sea” (Poe 1209) seem to confirm this symbolism.

It is easily seen how taking note of symbolism is helpful in enhancing the understanding

of readers in regard to the many underlying elements of Poe’s short stories and poems. These

elements, including death, the afterlife, obsession, truth, madness, guilt, and so on, and the

identification and comprehension of these through the figures that symbolize them is crucial for a

full appreciation of Poe’s works. While Poe’s writing often includes an air of mystery, it is no

mystery as to why he is one of the most celebrated artists of his genre.

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Works Cited

Belasco, Susan and Linck Johnson, editors. The Bedford Anthology of American

Literature Volume One Beginnings to 1865. 2nd ed., Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “Annabel Lee.” Belasco and Johnson, pp. 1208-1209.

---. “Ligeia.” Belasco and Johnson, pp. 1162-1172.

---. “The Raven.” Belasco and Johnson, pp. 1205-1208.

---. “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Belasco and Johnson, pp. 1186-1190.

Zayed, Georges. “The Symbolism of the Poems.” Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism,

edited by Lynn M. Zott, vol. 117, Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. https://go-

galecom.ezvwcc.vccs.edu:2443/ps/retrieve.do?

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8 Dec. 2019.