In “The Raven,” the titular bird flies into the narrator’s chamber and speaks the word “nevermore” over and over again. This is the word that the narrator hopes is last spoken between them. Over the course of the poem, the narrator grows weary of the Raven's constant refrain of "nevermore," and he wishes it will be the last word said so that the Raven can finally leave his life. The bird keeps repeating the word and ending the hope that the narrator feels, which drives him insane.

The narrator of the poem is a troubled man who is mourning the loss of his love, Lenore. The Raven, who can only speak one word, tells the narrator that he will see Lenore “nevermore.”

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

The Raven’s “prophecy” about heaven drives the narrator further into grief and detaches him from reality. The repetition of the word “nevermore” builds the anxiety of the narrator and starts to break down his psyche. He falls into madness because of the way the bird closes him off from the possibility of hope, even that he will meet his love in heaven.

At the conclusion of the poem, the narrator asks that the Raven let the last “nevermore” be the final word spoken between them, but it doesn’t end. The narrator says,

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!"

However, the bird does not return to the Plutonian shores, a reference to the god Pluto who was in charge of the underworld in Roman mythology. Instead, the Raven continues to sit on the bust of Athena, called Pallas in the poem, and loom over the narrator's life,

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

Despite the narrator’s hope that the Raven will leave and let its last “nevermore” be the parting words, he isn’t so lucky. The Raven looms like a shadow over his life, continuing to say nevermore.