The Raven

In this essay i will be discussing Edgar Allan Poe’s story called The Raven and two values which are citizenship and commitment which may or not be present in the story. The Raven takes place in what could be the 19th or 20th century, it is not specified or mentioned in the story, it has a general dark and gloomy mood because of the themes it takes on. It is a story about obsession, sadness, guilt and having a troubled mind after loosing someone that was or is very important to you. This story uses a lot of metaphors to convey a hidden language, but can also be called figurative language. This story’s main values involve the feeling and understanding of grief and being confused as to moving on and living a life without that person. The two values we have to compare tot hem are citizenship and commitment. I personally think that citizenship is not a part of the story at all, citizenship is a value that relates to being a citizen of a country and abiding and following its rules, caring for it and defending it, it can be discussed in a political or social concept, but the story The Raven does not talk or take any of those two themes in. It talks more about personal experience but shown in a way that portrays horror and a feeling of being terrified, lost, filled with anger and panic about not being able to understand grief. When you have the value of citizenship, you are a part of something, a country or a community, surrounded by people who you care about and care about you, but this story’s main focus is about the solitude of our main character, or narrator, and how he handles an ominous experience that brings him to the edge of insanity, and haunts him with the memory of someone he loved and lost, even if its to specified in the story who she is, but from all the pain he suffers from not being able to be with her or see her, we can imply that he cared for her very much, and that makes his obsession with her passing even worse. A good example of a story involving citizenship would be one where the main character moves to a country other than the one they were born in and tries to get legal nationality because of the love they have gained for the country and the need to belong to it. The second value we have to discuss is the value of commitment. I can say in my opinion that this value, as the one of citizenship, is also not present in the story and does not take any part in its narrative, because of its very opposite meaning. A commitment is a promise a person does one to another or a task they have been appointed to, like for example, this essay is a commitment that my teacher appointed me to do. It could also be expressed as a relationship between two people, and that is why i believe this story does not present this value, since there is no committed relationship being shown in this story at all. The only person we see in the story that is mentioned other than the Raven, is Lenore, but since she has passed there is no one left for him. That also reinforces the solitude and pain he feels in the story. In conclusion, this two values are not shown in the story, they do not have any relations to it and don't seem to be what the author wanted to convey with it.