Jillian Hannah D. Uy 9 Pearl Sept.

9, 2015 G 20

Because of Love

We loved with a love that was more than love. Annabel Lee, E.A.P.

Imagine this. You are the author of so many well-acclaimed short stories and poems.

They are so well acclaimed that they have shipped globally, and you have become a

household name. After years of writing and journeying, you have returned to your country,

where you settled in a town you have visited many times over the years, only to find out that

the people here loathe you and are ignorant of your works. Days later, another tragedy strikes

there appears to be a copycat murderer who uses your works as inspiration and kills or

hurts everyone you consider friend, while leading you in convoluted race to rescue your loved

one from his clutches. What would you do? Leave your love one and flee? Or rescue her at the

cost of your life?

Edgar Allan Poe experiences just this in the 2012 American mystery thriller film, The

Raven.

The Raven is a fictionalized rendition of Edgar Allan Poes last days. It introduces new,

though fictional, characters in Poes life his new love Emily Hamilton, her father, Captain

Charles Hamilton, Inspector Fields, Henry Maddux, among others. While not a romance film, it

has a theme that is anchored on love. More specifically, it talks about what a person would do

because of love.
 This is first seen at the start of the movie, when Edgar Allan Poe visits Emily Hamilton in

her carriage. It is evident that Poe loves Emily, and she loves him as well, despite her fathers

blatant disapproval of their relationship. Poe willingly goes to her father and asks for her hand

multiple times, despite Emilys fathers deep undying hatred of him. She is also willing to have

a show of bravery similar to this, as seen in these lines:

Charles Hamilton: I'm not sure what's troubling you, but your future happiness

means more to me than I could possibly describe.

Emily Hamilton: I really hope you feel that way at the end of the evening.

Those lines reference her plan to announce her engagement to Poe during the ball held

that night. Unfortunately, she was kidnapped that very night, in a place that was supposed to

protect her, a scene reminiscent of The Masque of the Red Death.

This, in turn, leads Hamilton, Poe, and Fields, along with Fields men, in a merry (or

should I say, disturbing) chase as they work together in order to save Emily.

Surprised? Captain Charles Hamilton, avid hater of Poe, worked with Edgar Allan Poe

to save his own daughter. He helped him decipher one of the clues the murderer sent, and

even treated him with civility, once his initial anger at having her daughter kidnapped under his

nose was gone. This just shows how a fathers love drove him to do anything to save his child.

He would do everything just to save Emily Hamilton.

 Poe displays the same characteristics as he races to find Emily in a twisted game of

hide and seek, set in a world not unlike the stories he wrote. He feverishly hunts for clues and

deciphers them like theres no tomorrow, in order to save his love. He was willing to do

whatever the murderer said if it meant that there was a chance that Emily would be found. In

fact, he repeatedly answers the murderers requests for his unfinished storys continuation,

over the course of the movie, because of the murderers words.

If I do not read a vivid accounting of this convergence of fact and fiction, then

dear Emily will die. Your only hope is to imagine a way to save her. I dare you to try

to conceive of the painstaking care I have taken to secure her and the elegant

means leading inexorably to her end. Are you up to the task, Mr. Poe? Are you even

capable of imagining the means to save your beloved's life? Or shall this tale end as

all your stories do, with Madness, Sin and Horror the soul of the plot?"

Towards the end of the movie, Poe replies to him, saying:

He knew now that all hope was lost. He had failed his beloved, and there was

one last thing left to do. One last act. A final desperate plea: one life offered for

another.

He offers the ultimate sacrifice to save Emily in both words and in deed. He first wrote

his end, then enacted it by drinking Ivans (the murderers) poison. Afterwards, he receives the
final clue a line from Tell Tale Heart which led him to conclude that Emily was beneath the

floorboards.

He then uses up the last moments of his life making sure that Emily is safe, before

dying in the park bench, muttering about telling Fields, His last name is Reynolds.

The Raven shows what love drives man to do. Because of Charles Hamiltons great

love for his daughter, he worked with Poe. Because of Poes great love for Emily, he sacrificed

his life to save her. Indeed, love truly does strangle things to people. It drives us to do what is

impossible in order to achieve what is improbable. How far would you go for someone you

love?

Take this kiss upon thy brow,

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow -

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream.

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream