“Ligeia,” published in 1838 by Edgar Allan Poe, describes the story of a narrator deeply captivated by his own imagination and thoughts and overwhelmed by act of escape. reality. This cautionary tale warns readers of the dangers of uncontrolled imagination and the problems that arise from intertwining the fantasy world with the real world. Through an internal struggle turned outward, the narrator's actions prove fatal for others. Due to excessive opium consumption driven by the need to escape reality, the narrator dangerously allows his ideas and thoughts to manifest into a feminine mirage that he cannot live without. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Ligeia, through its mysterious description, proves to be a creation of the narrator's mind. Although she looks like a real woman at first glance, small details suggest that Ligeia is only a mirage. The narrator is deeply in love with Ligeia, but does not remember important aspects of her life. For example, the narrator does not remember at all the moment he met Ligeia: "The character of my beloved, her rare knowledge, her singular but placid beauty, and the exciting and captivating eloquence of her serious and musical, made their way into my heart with steps so regular and furtive, that they went unnoticed and unknown” (644). Ligeia is described as having slowly worked her way into the narrator's heart in such a way that it was unclear how she had become his love. As a fiction born from the narrator's imagination, Ligeia was constructed over time and therefore had no specific moment or point of entry into the narrator's life. It slowly invaded his heart and then suddenly appeared. She slowly manifested into what appears to the narrator to be a real woman. Besides her unknown arrival, Ligeia is described in such a way that she seems barely there: “I would try in vain to describe the majesty, the quiet ease of her attitude, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her body. his passage. She came and went like a shadow” (645). Her barely heard footsteps and shadow-like movements tell the idea that she is not there at all. Rather a ghost or shadowy figure, Ligeia's description adds to the suspicion that she is not real. Completely composed in the narrator's mind, she does not appear to be a normal human being, which concludes her to be a fantastical vision. The narrator's use of opium and his aversion to the real world also add to the suspicion that Ligeia is nothing more than an illusion. Opium, representing a destructive state of mind, works to the narrator's advantage in that he can be propelled away from reality and into a dream state. In describing Ligeia, the narrator shares that her face and beauty “were the glow of an opium dream,” and states that she is “an ethereal and inspiring vision” (645). Ligeia is thus detailed not as the subject of a metaphor, but rather because she is literally the product of an opium-induced dream. Its very nature of existing is that of a drug type scene. She's not real. The narrator also concludes that Ligeia was “adapted to deaden impressions from the outside world” (644). In other words, it was specifically created to free the narrator from reality and allow him to retreat into his own imagination. For the narrator, Ligeia appears as a real woman, and this is what prevents her from falling back into reality. Her presence leads him to accept his fantasy as real. Carrie Zlotnick-Woldenberg, doctoral student in psychologyclinic at the Ferkauf Graduate School, reveals that "the narrator does not know the difference between events that occur in the outside world (reality) and those that occur in his own imagination (fantasy)." Ligeia is the factor who blurs the line between true and false, which is why in her description Ligeia can almost be considered a real woman. The details of her existence prove that she is something completely different. The narrator's use of opium pushes him into a dreamlike state in which reality is abandoned and Ligeia is created. Ligeia, a manifestation of the narrator's mind, represents the aspects that fascinate the narrator. He is obsessed with extreme and exotic studies, and Ligeia reflects this with his "raven black" hair and eyes that are "the brightest of blacks" (645-646). His facial features are strange to the narrator, influenced by his taste for mystery and unusual studies. The narrator, being a very intellectual character, is obsessed with his mind and thoughts. From there, Ligeia is created to be intelligent: “I spoke of Ligeia's knowledge: it was immense – such as I have never known in a woman” (647). The narrator admires that she is intellectual because he can relate to her. As a person living in his own mind, he takes extreme pleasure in having a physical manifestation of his intellect. Due to the narrator's extreme distaste for reality, he seeks by all means to live in fantasy. Ligeia, a projection of the imagination, is a spectacular way for the narrator to achieve his goal: “Ligeia brought me much more, very much more, than what ordinarily belongs to the fate of mortals” (648). Ligeia gives the narrator more than humans. of reality receive. Being so supernatural, it draws the narrator out of reality, and this is one of its main goals. The reason the narrator is so in love with Ligeia is not simply because he created her, but because essentially, she is him. A representation of his own beliefs and intellect, it allows the narrator to be fully connected only to himself and no one else, adding to his need to be separate from what is real. After Ligeia dies, the narrator marries a new woman named Lady. Rowena, who turns out to be the exact opposite of everything Ligeia represents. Ligeia is described as an exotic and strange woman, while Rowena is natural and represents reality by being a "fair and blue-eyed" woman (649). The narrator comes to hate Rowena because of her differences with Ligeia: "While Ligeia is the embodiment of the romantic spirit, her successor is associated with the mundane and the material" (Zlotnick-Woldenberg). Rowena is reality and the narrator desperately wants to slip back into fantasy. Ligeia is the representation of what he really wants. Zlotnick-Woldenberg asserts that the imagined woman and Rowena cannot both be in the narrator's life: “The two women cannot coexist. They exist sequentially: first Ligeia, then Rowena, and then Ligeia again.” Their coexistence would be a conflict, because the narrator cannot be in both reality and fantasy. The narrator being in favor of fantasy, his hatred for Rowena grows enormously until reaching a climax in his delirium: "As Rowena was putting the wine to her lips, I saw, or I may have -to be dreamed that I saw, to fall. in the goblet, as if coming from some invisible source in the atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant, ruby ​​fluid” (651). The narrator claims to have seen Ligeia poison Rowena's drink, but in reality it is he who kills his wife.. 2016.