has now come to represent evil itself:

"Prophet!" said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!"

At the same time, the narrator acknowledges that the raven's dark shadow hangs over his soul. It's going to be nigh impossible for him to expel the evil that's now entered into the very depths of his being.

Edgar Allan Poe was the master of using symbols in his writings. They symbols always represented something else.

Poe could have certainly used another animal in the story, but the effect wouldn't have been the same. He could have used a parrot, for example, but a parrot can speak many words. There is something ominous about the raven only saying nevermore. In some cultures the raven is seen as a bad sign. There are seen as mournful and never ending remembrance, which is very fitting in this story. The narrator can not get over his love, Lenore. The raven can also represent an ill omen or even death. When the raven sits on the bust of Pallas, this is another symbol for us. Pallas was the Greek god of wisdom. The raven can be seen as wise and having knowledge of something the narrator does not. 

Edgar Allan Poe's use of the raven is very symbolic. A raven is midnight black, which the story does take place at midnight. The darkness of the bird is an ominous symbol for the man. And let's just face it, ravens are really creepy birds. We have to ask ourselves, though, are they really creepy, or just creepy because we know the story? Edgar Allan Poe was a master of his work.

The raven could be seen as a symbol of death or mortality, and the narrator's character is drawn for us through his responses to the raven and what it represents. In the beginning of the poem, the narrator is mourning his lost love, Lenore, and this is when he hears the phantom knock at the door followed by the raven's tapping at his window. The narrator asks the raven to tell him its name, what it is called "on the Night's Plutonian shore" (in the underworld—"Pluto" is another name for Hades), linking the bird to death right away (line 47). Because the narrator has been so caught up in considering his dead beloved, he seems to link the bird to death. Such a link shows us how depressed his state of mind really is.

Further, he is grieving, and he begins to think that the raven is simply repeating a word—nevermore—that he must have learned from his "unhappy master" (63). The narrator is so sad over his loss of Lenore that he projects this sense of loss and tragedy onto others.

Next, he begins to see the bird as "ominous" as death certainly seems to be for him (as it is mysterious and took his love) (71). Then, as he was initially trying to forget his grief by distracting himself with his books, he wonders if perhaps the bird was a gift, sent by God as a way to prompt "nepenthe" or forgetfulness (82). Again, we see his emotions reflected in his response to and interpretation of the bird's meaning and origins.

The narrator hopes that the bird is from God but considers the fact that he might be a "prophet" sent by the devil (85). He desires to know if he will ever be reunited with Lenore in the "distant Aidenn," or heaven (95). When the bird says, "'Nevermore,'" the narrator becomes enraged and orders the bird away; however, the bird does not leave... Ever.

Now that the narrator has been forced to come face to face with mortality—both Lenore's and, by extension, his own—he can never escape this knowledge, and he grieves it, gets angry about it, tries to forget it, and tries to accept it. We get a sense of his nature, of his character, from these responses.

The raven is a symbol of death in this poem, arriving at a time when the speaker has experienced a significant loss: the death of his beloved, Lenore, for whom he grieves deeply. The raven appears in “bleak December,” the month that signifies the death of the year, and at “midnight,” a time that signifies the death of day.

When it appears, the speaker says that the raven is “stately” and that it makes no “obeisance” to him, even adopting the “mien of lord or lady.” In short, the raven acts as though it is mighty and unstoppable, is superior to or more powerful than the human speaker and has every right to go wherever and whenever it wants to. One can imagine that this is how death, if embodied, might feel and act as a result of its power over human beings.

The speaker also describes the bird as being black, a shade that is often symbolic of death. Contributing to this symbolism is the fact that the raven itself is a bird that eats carrion, or the carcasses of animals.

Perhaps most importantly, the raven comes as the speaker is contemplating mortality and the death of his beloved, Lenore. The speaker even says that the bird has come from “the Night’s Plutonian shore,” Pluto being the Roman god of the Underworld, where the dead reside. The speaker tries to banish the bird but ultimately says,

my soul from out that [bird’s] shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!

This image bolsters the idea that the bird symbolizes death, and it specifically suggests that the speaker can never again be unaware of death or mortality now that he has experienced such a loss firsthand.

The image or the symbol of a raven can mean different things for different people.

1. Believers in Wicca

People who practice Wicca (modern witches) believe that the Raven is a mystical bird who can travel between the world of the living and the dead. Therefore, the knowledge the bird holds is special given they possess knowledge of both worlds.

2. Native Americans

Native Americans believe that the Raven possess the knowledge one needs to enter the place where the Great Spirit lives. Therefore, the raven symbolizes a great change.

3. Pagans

Pagans believed the raven to symbolize a healing and protection. The raven is a symbol which shows change is coming.

4. Druids

The Druids believed that the raven possessed the knowledge of what was to come (omens). The Druids believed that by studying the bird they could predict what was to come.

5. Ravens have also been used to depict the morbid and Gothic. Given they have been used in many horror and tales of suspense, the raven has been depicted in many texts such as Poe's "The Raven." Historically know to be extremely intelligent, the bird has been used as a messenger bring knowledge of death, sorrow, and what is to come.

Poe seems to choose a raven, a "non-reasoning" creature, because it allows for ambiguity in the speaker's interpretation of the raven's speech. At first, the speaker assumes that the raven is only repeating the one word it knows: "Nevermore." He reasons that the bird likely had a somewhat melancholy owner who spoke the word often, inadvertently teaching it to the raven. However, he then begins to speculate that the bird is actually a gift from heaven, sent to distract him from his sorrow over his dead lover, Lenore. Still later, though, he begins to ascribe some nefarious purpose to the bird, conjecturing that the bird is actually an evil prophet come to terrify him by telling him that he will never again see Lenore, not even in death. We cannot know, for certain, which of these interpretations, if any of them, are correct. It is possible that the bird is non-reasoning, and it is also possible that the bird is there to torture the narrator. His speech matters because it is his speech that alerts the narrator to the bird's potentially supernatural origins.

For the first half of the poem, the raven seems to be a literal bird that comes into the narrator's chamber when he flings open his window. The man is able to take some pleasure from the unusual visitor, enjoying its flirting flutters and its aristocratic attitude. When he realizes the bird can speak, he begins to consider how it gained that ability, and he sits down to watch the bird as if to enjoy it as entertainment.

But in the twelfth stanza, as the narrator begins "linking fancy unto fancy," the bird becomes for the first time "ominous." In stanza 13, the bird suddenly has the ability to burn into the narrator's "bosom's core" with its "fiery eyes." As the man begins losing touch with reality, thinking he hears the footfalls of angels, he attributes greater powers to the bird, calling it either a prophet or a devil.

When the bird seems to say that the narrator will not see his lost Lenore in the afterlife, the man commands it to "take thy beak from out my heart." This is clearly metaphorical or symbolic language, not literal. In the final stanza, the statement that the raven "never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting" must also be symbolic because a literal bird would not remain motionless in one place for such an extended period of time. The description of the raven's eyes as "seeming" like a demon's again points to a symbolic meaning, while the narrator's soul being held captive by the bird's shadow is the final proof that the bird is no longer merely a bird. The raven morphs from a real bird into a representation of the dark recesses of the narrator's own mind, filled with sorrow, grief, and despair.

One of the first clues we get that the raven is a symbol with figurative meaning as well as literal meaning is the way he arrives, strangely and mysteriously, and at midnight (the time of day most often associated with death). He knocks at the door and raps at the window like a person might. Further, when he does enter the room, he is "stately," with the "mien of a lord or lady" (line 40); in other words, he conducts himself with a dignified and almost haughty air, and he is thus linked to something powerful, which is a good clue that he represents more than just a literal bird. Also, his color—black—along with the type of bird he is—a raven—are both linked to mystery and death. In these ways, then, the raven seems to be symbolic of death and/or mortality, as the narrator suggests when he associates the raven with the "Night's Plutonian shore" (or, the underworld; Pluto was another name for Hades in Greek mythology, and night is often symbolic of death as well).

You could certainly focus on the symbolism of the raven itself. You might consider choosing three different things that the bird seems to symbolize to the narrator at various points in the poem and then analyze the bird in the context of the narrator's sorrow over his lost love, Lenore. In different sections of the poem, the raven might symbolize a divine distraction from the narrator's sorrow, a bad omen of future loneliness and continued sorrow, an evil messenger from the Devil, or even a constant reminder of the narrator's own mortality, as well as Lenore's.

Or, taking a different tack, you could explore other potentially symbolic items in the poem. For one example, the poem takes place at "midnight dreary" on a night in "bleak December," and when the narrator opens the door, he finds "Darkness there and nothing more." You could certainly analyze these descriptions as symbols: certainly Poe often uses midnight as a symbol of human mortality (as it represents the "death" of day), and December, as the final month of the year, can also be representative of death (as well as being the month in which winter begins, the season most often associated with death).

You might also consider why the raven is said to perch on a bust of Pallas Athena. She is, after all, the goddess associated with wisdom, and the narrator does question the wisdom of the raven: is it simply repeating the one word its master taught it, or is it actually a conscious, thinking being who has come to torture the narrator? Is its landing on this bust a clue to how thoughtful the bird is, or are we meant to interpret it as an example of irony? Similarly, the narrator seems to be in a study of sorts: he has books, and, of course, there is a door to the outside in the room, which makes it seem as though it cannot be a bedroom. How might his reading, the activity in which he is engaged when the raven arrives, factor in to his understanding of the bird? 

The Raven represents many things. First, it represents despair as it is a Gothic-based creature whose black color, its mythology as a bird of omen, and the fact that it showed up in the darkest and last month of the year represent long and lasting pain. Second, it represents the battle of reality versus letting go of such pain. The fact that the author allows it in, and permits it to linger there, means that he, himself, prefers to live in nostalgia and pain. Finally, it represents the passing of life, its flying and staying means a life that has been restrained by fear, and allowed to remain in the same state "for evermore". Hence, the Raven represents the weaknesses and pains of life as it moves on, and how some of us refuse to let it just happen.

The narrator of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” describes the bird at length in stanzas seven and eight. He describes the raven as “stately . . . with the mien of a lord and lady.” The bird exudes calm as well as power. The raven also has a “grave and stern decorum” and chooses to perch on a bust of Pallas, meaning Athena, the ancient Greek goddess of wisdom. These descriptions and references indicate that the raven is there to say something both honest and important. The raven brings knowledge, specifically a form self-knowledge for the narrator through memory.

After the raven enters the room, the narrator begins thinking about Lenore, about missing her and whether she is in a better place. The raven triggers the narrator’s memory as well as his regret. Yet the narrator later describes the bird as a “prophet” at the same time he calls it a “thing of evil.” By the end of the poem, the raven’s eyes “have all the seeming of a demon.” Think about what Poe might be suggesting about memory and self-knowledge by connecting all of these descriptions together. Does the raven make the narrator think about things that help him or hurt him in the end? Is the narrator better or worse off after exploring his memory and feelings?

Poe also includes other descriptions that may seem brief or obvious. Yet remember that Poe chose to include these terms, so it is worth thinking about them further. For example, the first time we hear about the raven it is “gently rapping, rapping” at my chamber door. Why would Poe pair a description like “gentle” with repetition of the forceful word “rapping?” Also, the raven may enter gently, but does it still have a gentle presence by the end of the poem? Poe also makes sure to describe the bird as “ebony,” meaning dark. The reader could have assumed that a raven would be dark, so why does Poe deliberately remind the reader of this fact? What does darkness symbolize, especially in the context of the narrator remembering someone he loved who has died late at night?

Poe personifies the raven so that the bird can perform a function within the poem. In speaking to the raven, the narrator reveals himself, the innerworkings of his mind as he struggles with grief and despair. Throughout the poem, the raven does not change, but we see the narrator move through a variety of emotions, including fear, anger, and deep sadness.

Also, by personifying the raven, Poe adds an element of mystery and suspense to the poem. Where did it come from? Why is it there? What is it thinking? The power of the poem, however, is found in this idea. The personification of the raven occurs only in the narrator's mind. It is he who finds human traits in the raven. Essentially, the bird does nothing except speak one word it has learned somewhere, if it even speaks at all. For the narrator to seek conversation with the raven indicates the depth of his desperation during the lonely night.

To me, this poem represents the way that we human beings are our own worst enemies.  We worry so much that we end up making ourselves depressed when there is not necessarily any reason to do so.

If you look at this poem, there's really nothing that's so scary about the raven.  It just sits there and says "nevermore."  All of the sadness in the poem is provided by the speaker.  He is the one who makes up the questions.  If he asked something like "when am I going to be sad" and the raven said "nevermore" it would be a lot different, right?

So, to me, the poem is showing how we depress ourselves -- how our own minds make us unhappy even though we would not need to be that way.

"The Raven" begins on a bleak and dreary December evening, after a long night of the narrator sitting and reading by himself in his room. The narrator has been trying to distract himself from the sorrow he feels over the loss of "the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore" (line 11), when he hears a tapping noise at his door.

When the narrator goes to the door, he finds that no one is there. He turns to his window instead, thinking that perhaps the wind has been rattling his window pane and creating a tapping noise. When he opens the shutters of his window, the Raven steps into the room and perches itself above his door.

The narrator asks the Raven's name, and the Raven replies, "Nevermore" (line 48). The narrator is unsettled by this behavior, but he tells himself that the bird will leave tomorrow. The bird again replies with "Nevermore" (line 60). The narrator begins to think about what this bird could possibly mean in repeating this same word. He starts to think about Lenore again and believes that the air starts to smell like perfume. He concludes that God must have sent the Raven and some angels to help him forget about Lenore, but the bird responds again, "Nevermore" (line 84).

The narrator becomes increasingly agitated and asks the bird if he will ever have any comfort or if he will ever get to embrace Lenore again (even in the afterlife). To both of these questions, the Raven again tells him "Nevermore" (lines 90 and 96). The narrator yells at the Raven and tells it to leave. The Raven responds, "Nevermore" (line 102). The final stanza of the poem tells the reader that the bird is still sitting on the same bust above the narrator's door and that the bird will never leave him.

In thinking about the Raven as a symbol, we know that the narrator is wildly distressed about the loss of his love, Lenore. He mentions his sorrow several times and asks the bird several questions about whether or not he will ever be reunited with her. In the final stanza of the poem, the narrator says of the Raven that "his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming" (line 105) and that "the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; / and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor / shall be lifted—nevermore!" (lines 106–108). Poe was known for his fascination with the supernatural, so it's possible that the reader could interpret the Raven as an actual demon sent to plague the narrator. However, it's also possible to think of the Raven as a manifestation of the narrator's depression and/or anxiety over his lost love.