"The Raven" presents the psychological truth that human beings are always trying to mitigate or palliate our fear that death really is the end. The narrator begins the poem by describing his attempt to distract himself from his sorrow over the death of his lover, Lenore. Then, when he hears a knocking at the door and opens it to find that no one is there, he whispers her name into the night, as if hoping that it were her spirit returned from the dead. Thus, he clearly wants to believe in some kind of afterlife, some place and time where he can be reunited with her since they cannot be together in life.
When the narrator suggests that the raven might be from "'Night's Plutonian shore,'" he refers to the Underworld (Pluto = Hades, god of the Underworld, and Night = symbol of death). He wonders if the raven is a messenger from this place, a place where there would be some continued existence after death. He asks later if "'within the distant Aidenn'" he will once again be able to hold Lenore; here, he refers to Paradise (Aidenn = Arabic for Eden) or Heaven. He wonders if a heaven exists where his soul will live on and once more be united with Lenore. However, the raven continues to tell him "'Nevermore'" whenever he proposes the possibility of any life after death, making him feel desperate and angry and sad. Ultimately, he says that the raven, now symbolic of the idea that death really is the end, casts its "shadow on the floor" and that his "soul from out that shadow [...] / Shall be lifted — nevermore!" Now that the narrator is assured that there is no life after death, he can never hope for a reunion with Lenore, and his life is cast into darkness by the knowledge that she is truly gone and that one day he will be too.
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