At the end of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven,” the speaker is left in a state of despair and hopelessness. After a haunting encounter with a mysterious raven that visits him, the speaker is driven to madness as he questions the meaning of life and loss.
The raven, which symbolizes the speaker’s grief and the permanence of mortality, repeatedly utters the word “Nevermore” in response to the speaker’s increasingly desperate questions about his lost love, Lenore. This word serves as a grim reminder that his sorrow will never end, and ultimately, it becomes a symbol of his shattered hope.
By the conclusion of the poem, the speaker is engulfed by his sorrow, and he concludes that his soul shall never escape the shadow of this despair, as he declares that the raven shall remain on his chamber door forever, marking the inescapable nature of his grief.