Analysis of Ligeia by E.A Poe

This is a sample of my own analytical work.

The Everlasting Injury

            Death is a truth man has come to contend with since before any recorded age, and the concept of a ghost is a reaction of man’s everlasting injury that is mortality that Poe adduces in his short story “Ligeia”. The tales of ghosts have been shaped by many faucets of emotions. From comedies to horrors and vengeance, the tale of spirits has been remixed for centuries. But Poe’s, being in text one of horror, is in whole a reaction to mortality. Edgar Allen Poe wrote the short story, “Ligeia” in 1838. It is a continuing testament to the skill of his craft and vocalization of his ill-fated romanticism. “Ligeia” in the face value of text is a tale of love and death and morbid revival. Yet, the picture overall by the introduction of specific poetry casts a greater shadow on the work. Conclusively, the brief dialogue and characterization of the lovers, declares an allegory of death’s inevitability and the attempt to deny it by Ligeia’s resurrection.

            Poe’s choosing of Joseph Glanvill’s poem establishes the bedrock for the story to build upon. The poem is used as an epigraph and because of this Poe creates a breadcrumb to what he means with the creation of this work. The poem is used as a duality to the work. Ligeia is more than just a story of a man who loses his love and comes to witness her revival years later.  The line that is most evident of Poe’s thematic trajectory rests within the line of the poem by Glanvill,” Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.”. Glanvill declares here that it is through the will of an individual that decides the absolute death of his soul. Poe was a prominent figure of the macabre genre and despite the usual acceptance of death in the settings of works with the death of a character being done prior to the setting or early in narrative, this work tackles the very question of death’s occurrence itself. This is a rare act of rebellion within the genre where it is usual for moving onto events from one’s death with acceptance by the reader. Poe still creates death within his work. Yet, an important question arises from the usual events of the horror genre. The theme here is about a problem that the reader is involved in as well. Ligeia is the vehicle that Poe hauls this question though he answers firstly with Glanvill.

            Ligeia is more than a Juliet to the narrator which the first half of the story evokes. She is a static character in the development of the story but she is shaped to be a stage for Poe to voice his fears. She, with dialogue, establishes a question to the reader which comes in the line that she speaks, “…That the play is the tragedy, Man and its hero the Conqueror Worm. Shall this conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part and parcel to Thee?”. The conqueror worm is death and he is our hero because death alleviates us from our mortal coils. Death is the only realistic end to all lives. Therefore, Death will always cease our life’s struggles. But Poe wants another answer.  Anything else that is not death, which is why he chose Glanvill’s philosophy that promotes life over death. The line Ligeia speaks,” Not part and parcel to Thee?” is the most sympathetic line of the dialogue. She is asking if we can ever be a part of death, suggesting if death can ever not end us but transform us. But we are not part and parcel, so we are always the boundless captives of death and never the equals or more. It is a tragic pleading to not go into oblivion by Poe.

 

           Poe has played the necromancer many times in his stories and with pen resurrected the dead many times. However, it is here more of an act against our nature rather than ordinary story telling. Ligeia is a question answered with desire fulfilled by the time of her resurrection. The narrator reacts in horror with the line,” Here then, at least,’ I shrieked aloud…” to the appearance of Ligeia but he, through pained memory, recognizes her not as a horror in whole but in the line,” …and wild eyes-of my lost love-…” she is brought again as a virtue reclaimed. He describes her not as a monster but as a love that was lost. Ligeia, through the labor of the narrator’s memory, has returned to him. She has cheated death. The usual tropes of horror aside, his choice of words and the implementation of Glanvill’s poem deceives the horror genre.

 

             Edgar Allen Poe was a romantic with a deeply troubled history with love. This story is his rebellion against the cruelty that was put upon him by the ultimate natural force of the world despite the good powers of love. Albeit, still having to live in a reality where the dead remain dead, he creates a fantasy where he can cheat what has abused and robbed him. This is not a love story strictly but a fantasy spoken of a man dealing with a force where he must surrender completely. “Ligeia” is more than your Romeo and Juliet which ends in something of a tragedy. This is Poe’s story of him being granted the utmost desire in any story where a man lives, breathes and, in his case, happens to love. A story where life can extend beyond that point where all life comes to an end. Even despite Ligeia being fiction, Poe utilizes the platform to create an enclave where man can subjugate the conqueror worm that is death and have himself as the true hero that ends his own tragedy.

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

A very scholarly and erudite piece here. I think poor Poe was damaged from childhood by his having to live in the same room with his tubercular mother as she died.