Essay Sample on Love's Overpowering Beauty: Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe

Introduction

Love is an overwhelming emotion that transcends beyond and above the social constrictions. Although a significant motivator to attaining diverse objectives, it can be dangerously dominating, overpowering, and clouding the human judgment. "Ligeia" by Edgar Allan Poe presents an intriguing yet excruciating experience of an overshadowing love of a husband to his wife. Ligeia's powerful beauty and love subjugate the "narrator" more than an opium drug that he surrenders his most divine authorship to her wife. Edgar Allan Poe denotes the power of passion and love to influence human perception and free-will that surpass death. As the character established, people, like love, only die if they succumb and surrender their free-will to the will of supernatural beings. Therefore, rhetoric assessment of the multimodal love, addiction, and hallucination presented in "Ligeia" by Edgar Allan Poe provides a comprehensive understanding of the socio-cultural approach to life.

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Author's Depiction

"Ligeia" by Edgar Allan Poe denotes an engulfing story by an unknown narrator describing the painful memories he holds of his dear wife, Ligeia. Ligeia is an epitome of beauty, passion, and intelligence, a combination rarely found in a woman. Her curved shape, dark-eyes, raven hair, and unconventional serene beauty overwhelms the narrator that he magically forgets everything and surrenders his love, will, and might to Ligeia. She depicts high intelligence on complicated and sophisticated mathematical science, classical language, metaphysical knowledge, and "wisdom too divinely precious not to be forbidden" (Poe 19) The author Poe portrays the pain, anguish, emotional distress, and mental breakdown that the narrator succumbs after Ligeia, her wife, falls ill and eventually dies. Her memory dominates his living being, which drove her to utilize opiums to alleviate the pain. He consequently became addicted and began hallucinating about Ligeia, despite marrying a second wife, Rowena. After only two months in a loveless marriage with Rowena, she becomes ill, and the narrator overdrugs her with opium leading to her untimely death. However, even in her death, Ligeia still dominates the life of the narrator as her spirit reincarnates in Rowena's body to torment the narrator.

Rhetoric Analysis

The narrator is prodigiously possessed and obsessed with Ligeia'sbeauty and marries a beautiful, strong, and intelligent woman with no specific background or surname. Poe only presents the narrator's concept of an ideal woman with a feminine consumptive appearance. The narrator succumbs excellent pain and anguish in his marriage with Rowena, who, despite being beautiful with "the fair-haired and blue-eyed," depict human vulnerabilities and weaknesses, unlike the perfect Ligeia (Bertha 72). The narrator's consuming love for the celestial Ligeia afflicts him with poisonous obsession and madness, making him abandon his rational thinking and his socio-domestic responsibilities. Like the narrator, humans often chase an obsessive idea rather than conforming to the reality of life (Bertha 960). The unattainable ambitions and objectives of a utopic state of mind adamantly suck the happiness out of life and result in massive excruciating agony and soreness as one feels empty leading in drastic and dangerous actions such as addiction. For instance, the narrator's obsessive love for his supernatural woman blinds his mind, heart, and body that he becomes helpless and childlike. Poe denotes that despite the narrator being a widely traveled, smart, and a survivor of two terrifying hurricanes, his overshadowing desire to attain an idealistic dream represented by his love to Ligeia thwarts his existential reality.

Unlike the idealistic gothic representation of Ligeia, Rowena is unable to quench the overwhelming desires of the narrator as he holds on to the notion and image of Ligeia. He remembers sophisticated details about Rowena, while only reflecting the physical appearance and masculine soul of Ligeia, the narrator quickly disputes his love for Rowena, a representation of real, tangible, and existing being (Gale, 63). He conforms to the metaphysical perception that man is only as strong as his deep enrooted free-will. As encouraged by her dead first wife "Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will" the narrator constantly summons Ligeia even in her death and exclusively holds on to the idea, magical and overshadowing nature of her dominating spirit. Ligeia dominates both Rowena and the narrator's marriage life, and Rowena's dead body as his intense love for her exceeds the social constrictions and metaphysical realms (Bertha 960). The strength and power of the human ability to overcome extreme barriers within the socio-cultural life of man require massive cognitive motivation and exceptional determination.

Edgar Allan Poe portrays the pain and suffering that comes with an overwhelming desire to attain perfection or perfect life. The human mind, though imperfect, strives to create a utopian society to achieve perfection, which drives people not only to develop great imagination but to take drastic measures to transition such imagination to reality (Gale, 63). Poe indicates how the human inability to attain their dreams and desires result in pain and sorrow. The narrator continuously takes opium until he becomes an addict to manage the suffering, heartache, and nuisance that his lost love brings. The narrator rhetorically questions his ability and will to accomplish his deepest desires as he reflects on his human limitations and vulnerabilities. He states, "I could restore her to the pathways she had abandoned-ah, could it be forever? Upon the earth" (Poe 661-662). As he struggles to revive and rejuvenate his burning desires for unrealistically perfect Ligeia, he requires determination, persistence, and tenacity to enable him to achieve his goal. However, summoning Ligeia's spirits to dominate his life again resulted in overdependency on opium that causes massive hallucinations and allusions that exclusively deteriorate the narrator's judgment and sanity. Unlike Ligeia, who possess an exceptional will power that outstrips, the narrator's psychological and mental construct is feeble and unable to fathom the ability to change the immense human weaknesses.

Peroration/Conclusion

Conclusively, "Ligeia" by Edgar Allan Poe portrays a psychological obsession that human possesses to attain ultimate utopic life. Depicting Ligeia as a perfect epitome of physical beauty, embodiment of extensive intelligence of both metaphysics and "forbidden wisdom," arouses critical thoughts and realization of human imperfection. While the characters strive to control their free-will, the contrast between Ligeia and the narrator portrays the realistic gap between humans and celestial beings. The overwhelming love for Ligeia overcomes the narrator's will to conform to social standards and consequently develop a dependency on opium that degrades and deteriorates his rational abilities. He is not only unable to remember Ligeia's origin or can fathom his environment but also cannot express love to his wife, Rowena. Likewise, humans'obsession with unattainable goals actively inflicts sorrow in their life which disintegrates their domestic, social, or even professional relation to their environment. Therefore, "Ligeia" rhetorically sound a warning to the possession of dangerous ambitions or desires that can ruin the very fundamental nature of human existence.

Works Cited

Poe, Allan. Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Vol.4. The Chesterfield Society. London. 1909.

Bertha, Fernandes. Poe: The art of plagiarizing.International Journal of Research inHumanities, Arts, and Literature. Vol. 1, Issue 7. Pg. 1-6. 2013. Available at https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiv_Lmk0J3oAhUcQEEAHY3MDysQFjAAegQIBRAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Foaji.net%2Farticles%2F2014%2F488-1393670153.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1AqEVOZhrosaYT3dKhRsuD

Gale, Cengage. A study guide for Edgar Allan Poe's" Ligeia". Gale, Cengage Learning, 2018.