Question

What is the effect of the organization of this poem?A) The urgency of the matter becomes more evident.B) The speaker's reaction gets less pronounced.C) The suspense gives way to tranquility over time.D) The speaker's paranoia becomes more pronounced.

Answer 1

Answer: D) The speaker's paranoia becomes more pronounced.

Explanation:

One of Edgar Allan Poe's greatest poems, "the Raven", is about a narrator which loses his sanity over a strange visit from a raven. The raven can speak, and utters only one word, "nevermore."

The fast pace of the poem suggests that the speaker is getting more and more upset as the story progresses. The rhyme scheme is ABCBBB, which, in combination with the internal rhyme gives this poem a melody. There is a repetition of words such as "nothing more" and "nevermore", which emphasizes the dark atmosphere even more. Moreover, sound "o" is repeated frequently ("Lenore", "nevermore", "floor", etc.) in order to stress the speaker's paranoia. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker is only sad because of his loss and irritated by the presence of a raven. However, as the poem progresses, the speaker gradually becomes paranoid due to the fact that the raven answers each one of his questions with "nevermore."