According to his life story, Edgar Allan Poe was a notoriously dark and depressed man, always looking for love. When he finally found a marital relationship with his first cousin, she died, making his life even more tragic and empty. He often wrote of his despair over his lost love and used it to inspire many great works. Some may consider Poe the pioneer of the horror genre. His most famous work, The Crow, played an important role in giving birth to this new type of entertainment. The Raven is about a man, heartbroken over his recently deceased lover, who is visited by a mysterious raven. The poem documents the speaker's feelings and curiosities about this raven who, shockingly enough, can talk. However, the Crow can only speak one word, which allows the speaker to go berserk. Through the use of symbolism and allusion in Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, Poe illustrates that the inability to accept the past will inevitably lead to the self-destruction of one's future. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayPoe uses symbolism to show the consequences that come from rejecting or accepting finality. In the poem, the Raven is used to reflect the speaker's denial of the past and to show the self-destruction that comes with it. By interacting with the Crow, the speaker quickly learns that the only thing he says is “never again.” However, he continues “begging – is there – is there balm in Gilead?” to which the Crow replies "Never again". He is asking the Crow if there is hope in his future. Although he has already learned that the Crow will only ever respond with "never again", he still asks him questions that he wants to have a positive answer to, failing to accept the Crow's response pattern. As if this were not enough of a lesson for him, almost immediately afterwards, he asks the Crow to "tell this sorrow-filled soul if, in distant Aidenn, he will embrace a holy maiden whom the Angels call Lenore" to which the Crow predictably responds "never again". The speaker allows this to infuriate and depress him further. The speaker's refusal to accept the certainty of the Crow's answer leads him to engage in this self-torturing activity. The Crow reflects his inability to accept the certainties learned from the past and this is supported by the way the Crow first appears. The poem begins with the speaker examining some literature when he hears a knock on the door. He initially ignores the heartbeat, but then it happens again, which scares him. She assumes it is a visitor and goes to open the door, but is only met with darkness. He then calls his late beloved Lenore, with the slight hope that it was she who knocked on the door. When he comes back, he now hears the banging on the window. He opens it and “in there entered a majestic raven from the holy times of yore. He didn't pay him the slightest homage. The Crow forcefully and unintentionally enters his home, only after foolishly calling his dead Lenore. This further suggests that the Raven is a symbol of his denial of the past. All of the speaker's depression is due to the self-destructive activity of rejecting the fact of the past. Only when he accepts that his Lenore will never be with him again does he feel relieved of some of his sorrows. The speaker reflects on the nature of the Raven while sitting on a velvet cushion, which reminds him of Lenore. It leads him to the realization that "she will press, ah, never again!" Once the speaker admits to himself the finality or "never again" of Lenore's death, the air is then mysteriously filled with a sweet scent that "God has lent you - through these angels he has sent you respite..