One way to interpret characters in poetry is to analyze them both with a literal eye as well as a figurative one. In Poe's "The Raven," a man sits grieving in his chamber over his lost love, Lenore. The man is literally just a man who is grieving, but figuratively, he could represent anyone who has lost a loved one. In the same way, the raven is literally a bird who accidentally flies into the man's room. Figuratively, though, ravens have been messengers of truth in other tales, such as the Grimm's Fairy Tales. However, in the world of Poe, where insanity and darkness thrive on the peculiar, the raven might represent the man's subconscious truth telling him to accept the fact that Lenore is gone and to stop wallowing in grief. Therefore, the raven is neither good nor bad; nor is he a person, but a raven, who symbolically attempts to reason with a desperate and grieving man to accept his loss. If a person must be selected to be the antecedent of the raven, then it would be the man's true consciousness striving to make him understand reality, accept the truth, and let go of his grief.
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