"The Raven"- Citizenship and Commitment

"The Raven" is a narrative poem created by Edgar Allan Poe, this poem is mainly aclaimed and noted foe its musicality. "The Raven"shows a Raven´s mysterious visit to the house of a narrator in the mourning of his lost companion, Lenore. In this essay we will be trying to apply the values of citizenship and commitment to this caracteristically super natural, full of folk, mythological, religious and classical references. Citizenship is when the attitude of an individual, and  its character, are accepted, and this individual is viewed as a member of society, behaviored in terms of the duties, obligations and functions of  citizen. Commitment is the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause or a certain activity or activities. In “The Raven”, I don’t really see the value of citizenship involucrated at all, Edgar Allan Poe’s intention when writing this poem was addresing the idea of a rotten and undying devotion, the narrator, who also happens to be the main character, is struggling with the conflict of the desire to forget or remember the memory of his companion, conflict that drives the narrator finally to madness, after passing by regret, being grief-stricken and a frenzy. I think, by the way, that the narrator has pleasure when focusing on loss, because he classifies the raven’s word “nevermore” as “only a stock and store”, but continues asking questions about the visit’s meaning, kind of knowing the answer, or the answer’s nature, before “listening” to the bird’s answer. I also think that is posible that the raven may be a product of the main character’s imagination, created by the thoughts and pain over the death of  Lenore, his companion. Citizenship, retaking my point, is a total outcast in this poem, the main theme of the poem, and intentions of the poem’s writer are not related in any sense to this peice of writing. Passing to the other value that we are trying to adress, commitment is definetely more related to the main idea of the poem and the intentions of the writer, when seeing the thoughts and struggles of the main character, we can sense a feeling of commitment not only to his companion, Lenore, as itself, as a person, but also commitment  to the memory of her, the memory that he is struggling to contain or let go. Even the assumed focus on loss that the main character has can be related to the value of commitment. The feelings that the main character is feeling are all, in a way, having to do with commitment to his thoughts, he can not let go of the feelings he once felt, and feels for his beloved Lenore, even after her death, and that is why, in a way, and in a certain point of view, that commitment, devotion, and later the incapacity of letting go he feels are basically responsible for the visit, or as I see it, creation (in the mind of the main character) of the raven, so consequently, it is not irrational to say that commitment, and other possible values included,  values that once were healthy and good for a relationship, are the responsible factors of driving our main character insane and mental. That is how I see the value of commitment is related to this poem, obviously seen in a very specific point of view. I don’t personally think that Edgar Allan Poe saw this value as a possible factor to be analyzed or even taken into account when reading this piece, because usually, commitment is not related to grief and rotten devotion, not even related to cause them. This values are pretty far away from being related to the main message this poem wanted to transmit, but seeing the details and using them in a certain way, you can see that the message of this poem can be scaled universally.

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