Content Category
Literary Criticism
Abstract/Description
By taking a narrator-centric approach to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Ligeia,” I analyze the story through the motif of memory and highlight the ways the narrator manipulates his memories to serve his dark desires. Concluding that the resuscitated Ligeia at the end of the narrative is merely a projection, and the Ligeia we are presented with throughout the narrative does not exist outside of the narrator’s memory. I argue that the narrator uses his manipulations of memory to set himself up as the god of his narrative, which reconciles the events of the story with the Glanvill epigraph that Poe specifically composed to precede this work. Citing support from scholars including D.H. Lawrence and Charles E. May, I further explore the psychology of the narrator. By approaching this piece through the narrator and his memories I reveal a unique perspective on the events and characters in the work.
Copyright and Licensing of My Content
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Location
B114 JFSB
Start Date
20-3-2015 10:15 AM
End Date
20-3-2015 11:45 AM
Included in
The Treachery of the Persistence of Memory: An Analysis of the Manipulative Narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's "Ligeia"
B114 JFSB
By taking a narrator-centric approach to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Ligeia,” I analyze the story through the motif of memory and highlight the ways the narrator manipulates his memories to serve his dark desires. Concluding that the resuscitated Ligeia at the end of the narrative is merely a projection, and the Ligeia we are presented with throughout the narrative does not exist outside of the narrator’s memory. I argue that the narrator uses his manipulations of memory to set himself up as the god of his narrative, which reconciles the events of the story with the Glanvill epigraph that Poe specifically composed to precede this work. Citing support from scholars including D.H. Lawrence and Charles E. May, I further explore the psychology of the narrator. By approaching this piece through the narrator and his memories I reveal a unique perspective on the events and characters in the work.