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    For you to fully understand and 

appreciate the terror I felt that one dreadful 

night, I must familiarize you with my late wife, 

Lenore. We had been married many years. We 

were always peaceful and upbeat with each 

other, and loved each other very much. Then 

came her death. The blow came harder than I 

could have ever imagined, and still hurts to 

this day. She had been sick for the past month 

or so, showing signs of coughing and fever, 

“Nothing more than an ordinary cold,” she had 

said, not knowing it was much more fatal than 

that. Only after her death and a thorough 

autopsy did the doctors discovered the real 

cause, tuberculosis. 

     As I stated before, her death still troubled me to this 

day, trying my best to distract my brain by reading 

through a book I had picked off of my shelf, a book full 

of short folk tales, many passed down generation by 

generation, and finally written down on paper. I had 

almost drifted off into a slumber when I heard I very 

quiet knocking coming from outside my bedroom door. 

The noise was barely audible, but I could have sworn I 

had heard something, and strained to hear it again, but 

with no avail. It must just be a visitor, I thought to 

myself.

        I looked over at the dying fire, the last 

embers slowly glowing dimmer by the second. 

As I started to crawl back into bed, my brain, 

now unfettered from the book, returned to the 

sorrow of my lost Lenore. Then again, I heard 

a slight noise, but soon after realized that it 

was just the curtains. So I found myself 

repeating, now audibly, “It is just a visitor, 

nothing else!” But the silence didn’t satisfy me, 

and, perhaps I unconsciously uttered, 

“Lenore?” All I received back was the echo 

Lenore! 

For the third time now, I crawled back into bed, only to 

spring up at the slight sound emerging from my 

window. As I unlatched the window to peer outside, a 

raven glided inward, ignoring my presence, and 

perched itself upon a bust of Athena, an antiquity on 

top of my door. I remarked at how brave the raven 

perched itself inside my room, as if he were an 

emissary from the underworld. “Now tell me,” I 

implored, “What is your name, raven?” To my surprise, 

it responded in one word, “Nevermore.” This one word 

stopped me for a second, completely sure that I had 

heard the bird speak clear as day, yet I was just as 

much doubtful of the raven named Nevermore. I told 

the raven that tomorrow, he would leave me, just like 

my hopes left me with Lenore. He responded once 

more, “Nevermore.”

    I sat down in front of the raven, bust, and door, 

and started to ponder his answer of Nevermore. 

Glancing over at the seat where Lenore used to sit, 

I became even more enraged, yearning to forget my 

wife. “I want to drink a nepenthe,” I proclaimed to 

the Raven, “to forget my lost Lenore!” he reminded 

me again about his disapprobation with 

“Nevermore.”

    “Leave! Leave at once!” I exclaimed. “I don’t 

want anything to do with you anymore! Go back 

where you came from, and never return! Don’t 

leave any trace you were here, not even to feather 

to remind me of this conversation! Please Raven, 

take off from my door!” All I had gotten from the 

Raven was a solemn “Nevermore.”

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