Poe's Stories brief biography of edgar allan poe
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Short Story By Flannery OConnor
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| Related Characters Narrator (Ligeia) (speaker, Ligeia Related Themes: Related Symbols: Page Number 113 Explanation and Analysis In this story, we're introduced to a narrator who's peculiarly obsessed with his bride, Ligeia. Ligeia's eyes are the very embodiment of the uncanny. Traditionally, the eyes are the most human, recognizable thing about a person--they're the "window to the soul" after all. Ligeia's eyes, however, aren't comforting or humanizing at all. On the contrary, they seem alien and bizarre. Thus, Ligeia's eyes are both familiar and disturbingly unfamiliar--in short, they're uncanny. Ligeia's eyes are an important symbol in the story, because they suggest a strange combination of attraction and repulsion. Much like the whirlpool in the previous story, Ligeia's eyes are both seductive and terrifyingto the narrator they hypnotize him, even as he fears for his life. The narrator's simultaneous attraction and repulsion mirror that of the reader--we're frightened of reading any further, and yet we can't help but read on. The night waned and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon the body of Rowena. Related Characters Narrator (Ligeia) (speaker, Lady Rowena of Tremaine Related Themes: Page Number 123 Explanation and Analysis In this passage, the narrator of the short story has remarried after the tragic death of his wife, Ligeia. The narrator's new wife, Rowena, has fallen seriously ill. Late at night, the narrator keeps watch over Rowena. Ashe watches, the narrator can only think of Ligeia--dead, yet still very much alive in his mind. As we gradually realize, however, Rowena seems to be transforming into Ligeia. Poe creates the illusion that the phenomenon is something supernatural and horrifying, but also that it's the narrator's own obsession with Ligeia that brings her back to life. The real victim hereof course, is Rowena, who seems to be no more than the empty vessel into which the narrator pours his obsession with Ligeia. Rowena is only a replacement for Ligeia--and herewith the narrator clearly hungering for his dead wife's return, Rowena herself seems "melt away." The Fall of the House of Usher Quotes I know not how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half- pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. Download 0.58 Mb. Share with your friends:
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