"The Raven" is a poem about a student on a wild, thunderous, December night who is reading "curious volume of forgotten lore" all in an attempt to forget the loss of someone named Lenore, whom he loved very much. Suddenly, a raven taps at his window and for a wild moment he imagines it to be his lost love. Humored by himself and the ungainly look of the raven, he lets the bird in. Because the man is so depressed and wants to know more about his loss he asks his ebony-feathered friend several questions pertaining to Lenore. Every question he asks he gets the same reply, "Nevermore." Finally he asks the bird the ultimate question,
             "Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
             It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angles name Lenore" (93-94)
             At the foreknown answer of "Nevermore" he demands the raven depart and "Take thy beak from out my heart" (101) and of course the anticipated answer comes: "Nevermore". At this the student concludes that the shadow cast by this bird on his soul "shall be lifted-nevermore" (108). The reason this poem is as popular as it is, is because it uses some exceptionally clever symbols, and all of these symbols help make the poem come off as an epic about death and solitude and for centuries people have loved to read about it.
             One of the darker symbols of the poem is the raven itself. Why did Poe use a raven over all other possibilities? Firstly, he could never use a human, because a human could never keep repeating one word and still keep its human qualities. Therefore Poe had to choose to use a creature that did not have reasoning abilities but still had the capability of speech. Some may inquire, "Why did he not use a parrot?" Well, the reason is that a parrot could not stay with the mood of the story; however a raven could, and a raven also has the ability to
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