BLOG ENTRY 8: All the symbols in my poem

The poem that I have chosen is called “The Haunted Palace” by Edgar Allen Poe. This poem is riddled with symbols, each with a different meaning. A symbol is something that is meant to represent something else, especially in literature. For example, a fire in the middle of a room might represent the relationship that a family has. A symbol can be anything as long as it has some kind of meaning in the context of the story. Authors often use symbols as tools to give their writing more depth which allows the reader to feel stronger emotions and to connect more with the text. In this poem, Edgar Allen Poe uses many symbols to give the majestic palace more of a human look and for the reader to get a better feel of what’s going on in the poem.

To begin the poem, Poe begins by describing the valley in which the palace was built; he describes the valley as “green”. The color green can be viewed as either evil or as a symbol of life. Maybe this was foreshadowing of the evil that was going to overtake the castle. In the next line, Poe mentions “angels”; angels are placed to represent that there is something superior to man. In the context of the story this might hint at the spirits that now run the palace. In the next stanza, Poe uses the color yellow, according to the dictionary of symbolism yellow is usually a sign of warning. This interpretation of the symbol is appropriate because later hell breaks loose inside the palace. In the following stanza, a door is described as glowing “ruby”. This could possibly be a symbol for warning that there is something behind the door. The king is also mentioned in the next stanza, this is a symbol of authority, primarily because he is the authority of the castle. The color red is also used a lot throughout this poem. This color is made to be very emotional and full of power. The fact that it is being used so much in this poem might be to represent all of the action that is going on in this poem. This would not be a far fetched assumption because throughout the poem we are taken through the history of the palace from when it is described in the beginning as lively to when the king is being thrown out of the castle at is taken over by the spirits Next, towards the end of the poem the flow of the spirits through the castle door is described as a river. The mouths of rivers and doors are usually associated with each other because they are symbols of crossing over from on plain to another. To finish the poem off, Poe says that the spirits “laugh but smile no more”, this represents the great evil of these conquering beings because being that laughs but does not smile is not laughing for a god reason, its laughing because it takes joy in the damage that it is causing.
The symbols in this poem are a perfect example of the quality of Poe’s work. He used symbols to perfectly set the emotion for his writing.