also described as "radiant" and she, too, is associated with divine creatures, like "angels." These depictions of young, beautiful, near-divine women are consistent with the Gothic.

Ligeia, of course, grows ill and "wrestle[s] with the Shadow" of death before she eventually succumbs. The narrator then purchases an abbey in a desolate part of England, describing its "gloomy and dreary grandeur," a true Gothic location if ever I heard of one. It is in a "remote and unsocial" area with its "verdant decay hanging about it." He becomes addicted to opium and marries another woman. He describes their bedroom using words associated with death. The light is "ghastly," the canopy over the bed is "pall-like." Giant black sarcophagi flank the room. His wife quickly grows to dislike him, and he "loath[es]" her as well, thinking only of Ligeia. He is obsessed with his dead lover. His wife grows ill, herself, and dies. However, as the narrator keeps watch over her body, she shows signs of life, then appears to die, truly. This happens several times throughout the night until, finally, the apparently alive body stands up, letting its burial shrouds fall away, revealing NOT the fair hair of the narrator's wife, Rowena, but the "raven" hair of the Lady Ligeia, evidently come back to life! Likewise, Lenore is dead as well, and the narrator of the poem mourns her so desperately that he is eager to interpret the appearance of a "raven" as some sign from God (or the devil) about a potential reunion with his dead lover in heaven. When someone raps at his door at night, he opens it, and when he sees no one, he seems to assume that Lenore's ghost has returned to him. This possibility of the supernatural occurring in reality is quite Gothic. The setting, too, is "dreary" and dark, "in the bleak December," creating the same spooky and gloomy sort of mood, also consistent with the Gothic.