Annabel Lee
Themes of Annabel Lee
Mortality
Love
Love is definitely the major theme of "Annabel Lee." Even if it's a little twisted in places, this is a poem about love. At its foundation it's about a guy who loves a girl, and refuses to quit loving her. The cool thing about this theme is that the poem doesn't stick to the sunny side of love. It digs deep into the dangerous parts of these emotions, the way love can trap you, torment you, and leave you sad and lonely. Love has made this guy who he is, but it's also clear that it has ruined his life. One day he's a happy kid with a girlfriend he loves a lot, the next thing we know he's sleeping next to a corpse every night. Love's a funny thing…
If love is the champion theme in "Annabel Lee," then mortality definitely comes in a close second. The speaker is obsessed with how and why Annabel died. He wants to know who he can blame for it. At the same time, the themes of death and love are tied together. The poem forces us to ask whether death is the end and has the power to kill love or whether, in fact love can triumph and continue after death. Maybe the speaker takes that idea a little more literally than he should, but that's his business. In a general way, we can all relate to the ideas of grief and loss and fate that come up when you talk about death.
Family
This theme doesn't come up nearly as often as love and death, but it's a really neat and important part of "Annabel Lee." This isn't a long poem, but Poe manages to weave all kinds of different themes into it. In this case he gives us just a hint that Annabel's family doesn't think much of him, and wants to tear the young lovers apart. In a sense, family gives him a way of talking about the pressure of outside society, all the people who can't understand how pure and true his love is. This is definitely an "us against the world," Romeo and Juliet kind of poem.
The Supernatural
Not only are the adults in this poem against the young lovers, it turns out that heaven and hell are lining up against them too. At least that's the speaker's theory. He never quite comes out and accuses God of taking away his girlfriend, but that seems like where he's headed. It's not exactly a religious deal, he just seems like a paranoid guy who thinks the whole universe, even the parts he can't see, is ganging up against him. When tragedy strikes, it's not uncommon for people to ask big angry questions about heaven and earth.
Man and the Natural World
Even with all of these big questions on our plate, we can't forget about the importance of nature in "Annabel Lee." It's not something the speaker makes a big deal of, but nature is everywhere in this poem. The sea is the biggest example, but we also hear about the wind and the clouds and the stars and the moon. Sometimes it's a quiet, steady presence in the background, but like everything else in this poem, nature is always a little bit scary and threatening. You never quite imagine that sea being sunny and pretty, do you?
