Symbol of the Raven

The raven stands for something high and royal. The colors of the raven are midnight blue and sometimes black, but yet a prismatic gleam when you look at it under a certain light. It is a symbol of esoteric power, crypticness and arcane powers that the boy would never understand. All he knows is that Lenore is somehow related to this bird, and his insanity for her has driven him to project such an elegant creature. Yet at certain times, it is mistaken for a crow - the lowly crow- and that could describe its sinisterness in this poem, how the Raven simply draws upon the boy's nightmares and wishes and then crushes them with just one word: nevermore. The raven is a classic symbol of elegance, and as mentioned by Mr. McCool in class before, the raven was the creature that flew around and around on top of Noah's ark in the Book of Genesis, so there was some sort of truth in that when it had some trace of malice in it. The raven is one to screw with people, to better put it in a layman's terms, because they like stealing things, make fun of people (symbolically) and that's pretty much it.