Demonstration and Narrator States Essay

The story of Ligeia describes a man who meets a women in which the circumstances of are filled with hallucinations and mystery. The existence of Ligeia starts to come develop as the narrator starts fixating on her erratic learning, rare beauty, and the care for language. The narrator describes the first encounter with Ligeia in Germany, in which he states,† Yet I know that I met her most frequently in some large, old, decaying city near the Rhine. † (Belasco, Johnson pg. 1021). The narrator states he think he meets her in Germany, in which he states he doesn’t remember much. The narrator demonstrates hallucinations and an altered state of mind with his visions of Ligeia. For example, the narrator explains that he met Ligeia’s family, but he can’t recall their name. The narrator describes Ligeia as a tall and thin women, whose days were emaciated. (1021). The narrator describes her voice as a sweet and low and face like an â€Å"opium dream†. (1021). Ligeia’s hair was described as looking like a raven and her skin as white as ivory. The visions of Ligeia comes from light and darkness that the narrator uses to conflict the two metaphysical traditions. The narrator describes Ligeia’s features with â€Å"strangeness†, in which her most distinguishing feature was her curly hair, in which her eyes matched. Ligeia’s image is described in a mysterious way in which the narrator blisses his memory of her exquisiteness. The narrator also describes Ligeia’s language and learning skills, in which helped him understand the world of theoretical studies during the first years of their marriage. The visions of Ligeia grow stronger as she gets ill and the narrator reads a poem which describes the natural disaster of life. The poem describes a theater where angels have come to see mysterious movements which are controlled by outside manifestations. The presences of the outside presences during the poem demonstrate mystery and darkness. After the death of Ligeia, the narrator gets remarried to Lady Rowena in which he gets a Gothic art piece in which his wife is frightened of. The narrator’s second wife begins to get sick like Ligeia and the narrator begins to think that death is forthcoming. The death of Lady Rowena brings flashback memories of Ligeia to the narrator and how obsessed he was for the love they once had. The gothic bridal chamber that Lady Rowena is in has Ligeia’s sensuality in the creation of the chamber so the narrator can remember her. The visions of Ligeia demonstrate irrational beliefs as where she returns alive in the bridal chamber in which the narrator scared of the rebirth of the corpse. Although Ligeia died, the memory of her stayed in the mind of the narrator. The return of Ligeia demonstrated that the narrator lost his sense of reality and the manifestation of her signifies that the vision of Ligeia is more physical than just a memory.