The narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" has a wide variety of emotional reactions to the Raven's saying "Nevermore" and to other uses of the word in the poem. One can follow at least eight separate emotional reactions to the word.
1. Amazement: in stanza 9, after the narrator hears the bird say the word for the first time, he marvels at the bird's ability to speak "so plainly."
2. Surprise: in stanza 11,...
The narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" has a wide variety of emotional reactions to the Raven's saying "Nevermore" and to other uses of the word in the poem. One can follow at least eight separate emotional reactions to the word.
1. Amazement: in stanza 9, after the narrator hears the bird say the word for the first time, he marvels at the bird's ability to speak "so plainly."
2. Surprise: in stanza 11, the narrator, after having said something to himself, is startled when the bird answers with the same word.
3. Empathy: also in stanza 11, the narrator begins to sympathize with the bird's former owner, from whom it must have learned the word by imitation.
4. Curiosity: in stanza 12, the man is first intrigued even to the point of smiling, but as he begins to wonder more about the bird, his curiosity turns "ominous."
5. Grief: in stanza 13, the narrator considers "nevermore" as it applies to his lost love, Lenore, and falls into deep sorrow.
6. Anger: in stanzas 14 - 16, the narrator becomes angry at the bird for saying that he will not see Lenore in Heaven.
7. Pain: in stanza 16, the narrator tells the bird to "take thy beak from out my heart."
8. Depression: in the final stanza, the narrator laments that his soul will never be able to escape the shadow of the raven, signifying the deep depression he has sunk into.
Thus the single word "nevermore" leads the narrator on an exhausting emotional journey as the poem progresses.
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