Stationary – ln relativity, a situation or spacetime is stationary if there is no change over time. One has to take into account that, in general reletivity, time can be defined in many different ways, all of them equally valid for formulating the laws of physics.

1. This leads to a modified definition: A situation or a spacetime is stationary if it is possible to define time in a way so that there is no change of its properties over time – if you follow the properties of a given region of space over time, they will not change.
2. Did Carroll have similar thinking on the properties of time being relative and potentially stationary even before Einsteins Special Theory of Relativity and did Einstein understand Wonderland? On seeing the simpler answer ‘one is nevaR backwards and one is forWords’ for the first time, Jenny Woolf said, “I have read many attempts to solve the riddle but yours jumped out because it’s exactly the kind of answer he would give.

AND it works when spoken but not when written. (He drew on what he had said to the children in the Alice books, and, as he was very much a story teller rather than primarily a writer I would have expected it to be a riddle which worked when spoken.) Thirdly, his own written comment on the riddle was phrased in a way which instantly conveyed to me that it was not the solution but a clue.” We may ‘nevaR’ find a more logical and reasoned argument in discovering an answer to the riddle and if this was always Carroll’s intension that someday the answer to the riddle would be explained, some 150 years in TIME after it was first set out in the story of Alice in Wonderland.

1. Whether this answer to the riddle was originally intended or not, it seems clear that Dodgson created a convoluted riddle answer that not only answered the original riddle, but gave us a second riddle to solve to provide a much simpler intended answer.
2. Such is the genius of the man.
3. Lewis Carroll wrote thousands of replies to fans that were full of puns, riddles, acrostic verses, charades, word play and anagrams.

He sent letters that could only be read by looking in a mirror. Some even had words in the proper order but spelled backwards and others read entirely backwards, letter by letter. He even signed his name backwards in one letter. This is more evidence of him providing riddles within riddles.

1. I’d like to think that Charles Dodgson could not inform us directly of the riddles answer because of the answer itself.
2. I would suggest that after all this explanation, the riddle answer put into its simplest form of ‘Why is a raven is like a writing desk? is Because it takes ‘TIME’ and ‘SPACE’ to solve.

Or even; Everything has a time and a place! `Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech. Why SPACE? To find out why space is mentioned you’ll need to continue to read the next section of the article but first a bit more evidence on time is below, if you have the time! What is amazing is that this was not the first time that this answer had been proposed independently.

This answer was first proposed by Mary Hammond, author of The Mad Hatter, the Role of Mercury in the Life of Lewis Carroll and she said in an online article about the riddle on 20th August 2014; “Why is a raven like a writing desk? Because that which is never backwards is always forwards, and a raven is nevar backwards, and a writing desk is always for words.

If you knew a little bit about Carroll’s habit of feeding out teasing clues bit by bit, you’d know that Carroll’s statement that the riddle was not intended to have an answer was very similar in form to other little games he played. For those of you who are not familiar with the statement, it’s in the form of “no meaning was originally intended, but if it was, hint, hint, and hint”.

I’m paraphrasing here, but I truly believe that if Carroll hadn’t died so soon after making the statement, he would have given us more clues.” An extract from Mary Hammonds book published earlier on 29th May 2014, the first time ever that this riddle answer was ever proposed concludes, “I persist in the belief that Lewis Carroll had an answer in mind when he wrote the raven-writing desk riddle, and that its genesis had something to do with Poe’s poem ‘The Raven’ (as so many have suspected), and his Philosophy of Composition (which Carroll took so closely to heart).

It may be an answer as cerebral as “because Poe wrote on both backwards”, which is very close to one of the solutions ventured by the American puzzle and chess genius Sam Loyd, but realistically, as Carroll was writing for children, it is probably something pun-tastic like, because a raven is nevar backwards, and a writing desk is always for words.” Mary Hammond tried to get her thoughts acknowledged by the North American Lewis Carroll Society (see below) and wrote an article on her thoughts for submission for the Rectory Umbrella but she was denied publication.

She then as Mary Hibbs, published a youtube video in October 2014 which argues that this answer is related to Poes poem on the Raven and how he wrote that backwards. See her short video on the idea here: http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEI9NuFzz_1oR4S6TyXmVvA The hidden charade that Neil Bant spotted in Carroll’s answer of ‘Letter’ and ‘Backwards’ in 2017, a year after his initial thoughts on the idea were published in Bandersnatch, is a final piece of the puzzle that provides further evidence for some to accept this as the intended answer by Charles Dodgson and the idea of time and a few flat notes being stationery (stationary) in 2023, concludes that the riddle has Time related properties that preceed Einsteins thoughts on the Special Theory of Relativity! It would not surprise me at all, if one day someone discovers that Alices’ sisters daydream conclusion was also editted to a ‘never-ending meal’ from an intended ‘nevaR-ending meal’, which would provide the absolute satisfaction that the riddle was intended to be solved in TIME.

“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some TIME. Again The Hatter wanted ‘some time’ related answer to the riddle he then asked her! The word time is mentioned 18 times which is curious as the Tea Party is also stuck at 18:00, 6 o’clock tea-time for such a long time together! This is the final clue to indicate the riddle answer has Time related properties.

Why is the Raven like the writing desk?

Because it can produce a few notes. Particularly if its name is Lewis Carroll. The answer lies in the quill: both may be penned, but they can never truly be captive.

Who said how is a raven like a writing desk?

Quote by Lewis Carroll : ‘Mad Hatter: ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk’

Where did Alice ask why is a raven like a writing desk?

Why is a Raven Like a Writing Desk? A couple of weeks ago, I spent time with a group of leaders in Singapore working on how to form better questions as part of a workshop on leading with agility. I returned home through Tokyo, which meant that I arrived in Dallas two hours earlier on the same day than when I departed Japan.

You would think that after years of international travel, I would no longer be entertained by the idea of arriving earlier than I departed. “What happened to those two hours?” I thought when I landed in Dallas. Of course the question can’t be answered because it rests on a fundamental misunderstanding.

However, asking myself the question got me thinking about nonsense, which in turn got me thinking about Lewis Carroll. In of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, after some back and forth about whether there is room at the table for Alice to join the Mad Hatter’s tea party, the Hatter poses the question, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” The precocious Alice is eager to work out the riddle, but gets caught up in the chaotic tea party conversation.

Later, when the Hatter asks Alice about the riddle, she admits that she has not worked it out and asks the Hatter for the answer. He tells her that he does not have the slightest idea*. Some nonsense questions amuse us in the same way we might be amused by the charming innocence of a child’s question.

Decades before Bill Cosby shocked and disappointed a whole generation, my friends and I spent hours memorizing his routines. I can still picture the cover of his album, Cosby’s question is elegant, simple and nonsensical. Asking, “Why is there Air?” and “What happened to the two hours I lost during my twelve hour flight?” indicate that the person asking the question is either confused or trying to be funny.

1. Like Lewis Carroll, I’m a fan of wordplay, puns and riddles.
2. I pay close attention to how people express themselves looking for interesting or clever ways to interpret a turn of phrase.
3. It turns out, not everyone delights in my attempts at wit.
4. What I imagine to be an endearing habit quickly becomes obnoxious if I’m not careful.

The is based on the idea that you can tell a lot about how people think by paying attention to the questions they ask. The key to helping people explore the thinking behind their choice of question is not to place too much emphasis on their choice of words.

• Consultants should not engage with a philosophical or lawyerly mindset.
• Philosophers worship clarity.
• Lawyers weaponize clarity.
• Consultants and coaches should focus on constructing meaning, not deconstructing meaning.
• Don’t focus on what the question means, focus on what the person means by asking it.
• As an example, when a client frames a consulting request as, “How do we get people to be more accountable?” I need to let go of my reflex to dismiss the question as nonsense and instead, help my client clarify the unexpressed need.

I might take an appreciative approach and say, “Tell me a story about someone acting with accountability to help me picture what you want more people to do.” Or, I might offer options to get the conversation moving, “When you say ‘accountable,’ is it more about keeping commitments or not blaming others or maybe it’s simply about complying with directives?” I don’t ask questions to hear answers.

What is the Mad Hatter’s riddle?

Why is a Raven Like a Writing Desk? – The Mad Hatter, for his part, finds her frustration hilarious. When Alice said she couldn’t answer it, the Mad Hatter finally admits the riddle has no solution. Arguably the craziest of the characters at the table, the Mad Hatter, asks her the now infamous riddle. “Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?” Out of all of the Lewis Carroll Riddles, this one is by far the wackiest. Alice ponders the question. She rolls it around in her mind like hot tea sipped from in a porcelain cup that is clutched by a shaking hand.

She figures, she fidgets. Much to her frustration, she cannot produce an answer. He was just asking for no reason at all. Alice sighed at the Mad Hatter’s response and says, “I think you might do something better with the time, then waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.” The Mad Hatter replies, “If you knew Time as well as I do, you wouldn’t talk about wasting it.

It’s him.” For Alice’s part, she becomes insulted and tired of being bombarded with riddles and she leaves, saying it is the stupidest tea party that she has ever been to. The riddle was so wildly insane that Carroll felt obliged years later to answer it himself, via an updated version.

He himself proposed the answer in the 1897 final revision of Alice’s Adventures. A raven is like a writing desk because, “Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!” The early issues of the revision spell “never” as “nevar”, ie “raven.” Some conjecture that a overzealous proofreader, while typesetting, fixed the intended error.

Many were introduced to the unanswered riddle in their formative years. It got under people’s skin and itched and bothered them like a bed bug, just as it did to Alice, and still does to this day.

Why does the Mad Hatter’s hat say 10 6?

Since 1986, October 6 is marked as the Mad Hatter Day — a famous character in Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Here are some interesting facts about the iconic comic character: English illustrator John enniel depicted Hatter wearing a hat with 10/6 written on it. The 10/6 refers to the cost of a hat — 10 shillings and 6 pence, and later became the date and month to celebrate Mad Hatter Day. The idiom “mad as a hatter” was around long before Carroll started writing. Colloquially used to describe an eccentric person, “mad as a hatter” is based on a problem that arose in the 1800s when hat companies used lead in the hat-making process. The lead got into their systems and they went insane, hence the term “mad as a hatter”. Rumour has it that Carroll intended the character of the Mad Hatter to be an outlandish caricature of a man named Theophilus Carter — an eccentric British furniture dealer from Oxford. Even though Hatter is popularly known as the Mad Hatter, Lewis Carroll never refers to the character as the Mad Hatter. The Mad Hatter comic book character made his debut in Batman #49 in 1948. He is the supervillain who keeps his Wonderland counterpart’s costume and personality, with a lot of his gadgets stored in his hat. In the world of Batman, he is a scientist who uses mind-controlling devices to manipulate his victims.

What does Raven symbolize writing?

Symbolism of Raven in Literature – Raven, as symbolism in literature, is mostly depicted as a sign of death, supernatural, and evil. However, these intelligent birds are also powerful representations in cultures like Native America, symbolizing a connection to the spirit world and teachers of magical studies.

What is the Mad Hatter famous for saying?

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.

What is the meaning of writing desk?

: a desk that often has a sloping top for writing on also : a portable case that contains writing materials and has a surface for writing

What’s the difference between a raven and a crow?

What is the difference between a raven and a crow?

Ravens differ from crows in appearance by their larger bill, tail shape, flight pattern and by their large size. Ravens are as big as Red-tailed Hawks, and crows are about the size of pigeons. The raven is all black, has a 3.5-4 ft wingspan and is around 24-27 inches from head to tail.

1. The crow is also black, has a 2.5 ft wingspan and is about 17 inches long.
2. The raven weighs around 40 oz while the crow is 20 oz – half the weight of a raven.
3. The raven has highly glossed plumage showing iridescent greens, blues, and purples.
4. Sometimes the feathers have an oily or wet sheen.
5. Crows also have feathers with iridescent purple and blue, but with less sheen than the raven.

Ravens are uncommon in populated urban areas. If you see a “really big crow” in the city, the chances are good that it really is a crow and not a raven. Ravens have wedge-shaped tails and crows have fan-shaped tails ( view drawing ). Ravens are longer necked in flight than crows. The larger bill of the raven can be seen in flight, but it is less apparent than the long neck. Raven wings are shaped differently than are crow wings, with longer primaries (“fingers”) with more slotting between them.

Ravens have pointed wings, while crows have a more blunt and splayed wing tip. A raven’s wing sometimes makes a prominent “swish, swish” sound, while a crow’s wingbeat is usually silient. Ravens soar more than crows. If you see a “crow” soaring for more than a few seconds, take another look – it might be a raven.

Common Ravens can do a somersault in flight and even fly upside down. Ravens are longer necked in flight than crows. The most familiar call of a raven is a deep, reverberating croaking or “gronk-gronk.” Crows make the familiar “caw-caw,” but also have a large repertoire of rattles, clicks, and bell-like notes.

How is Alice related to Raven?

Alice is a main character on the Disney Channel series, Raven’s Home, She is the daughter of Raven’s country cousin, Betty Jane and the granddaughter of Victor’s country cousin, Delroy Baxter. She lives with Victor to attend Katherine Johnson Tech, a special school for geniuses. Alice now attends Johnson Tech Middle School, as a Sixth grader. She is portrayed by Mykal-Michelle Harris,

Who does the Mad Hatter represent in Alice’s life?

Since 1986, October 6 is marked as the Mad Hatter Day — a famous character in Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Here are some interesting facts about the iconic comic character: English illustrator John enniel depicted Hatter wearing a hat with 10/6 written on it. The 10/6 refers to the cost of a hat — 10 shillings and 6 pence, and later became the date and month to celebrate Mad Hatter Day. The idiom “mad as a hatter” was around long before Carroll started writing. Colloquially used to describe an eccentric person, “mad as a hatter” is based on a problem that arose in the 1800s when hat companies used lead in the hat-making process. The lead got into their systems and they went insane, hence the term “mad as a hatter”. Rumour has it that Carroll intended the character of the Mad Hatter to be an outlandish caricature of a man named Theophilus Carter — an eccentric British furniture dealer from Oxford. Even though Hatter is popularly known as the Mad Hatter, Lewis Carroll never refers to the character as the Mad Hatter. The Mad Hatter comic book character made his debut in Batman #49 in 1948. He is the supervillain who keeps his Wonderland counterpart’s costume and personality, with a lot of his gadgets stored in his hat. In the world of Batman, he is a scientist who uses mind-controlling devices to manipulate his victims.

Why did Hatter go mad?

Mad hatter’s disease is a form of mercury poisoning that affects the brain and nervous system. People can develop mercury poisoning by inhaling mercury vapors. Mad hatter’s disease is caused by chronic mercury poisoning. It is characterized by emotional, mental, and behavioral changes, among other symptoms. Share on Pinterest Early symptoms of mercury poisoning may include sleep disturbances, a wet cough, and muscle pain. Mercury is a metal that can turn to vapor at room temperatures. The lungs can easily absorb this vapor, and once mercury is in the body, it can pass through cell membranes and the blood-brain barrier.

nervous systemstomachkidneysskinthyroidbreastsmusclesliveradrenal glandstestes and prostate

When chronic mercury poisoning affects the brain and nervous system, a person might be said to have mad hatter’s disease. The doctor may instead refer to the neurological changes as erethism. In medieval Europe, mercury was used in medicine and manufacturing.

• Later, hatmakers commonly cured felt using a form of mercury called mercurous nitrate.
• As the hatmakers inhaled mercury vapors over time, many experienced neurological symptoms of mercury poisoning.
• By 1837, “mad as a hatter” was a common saying.
• Nearly 30 years later, Lewis Carroll published Alice in Wonderland, which contained the now-famous Mad Hatter character.

In the United States, hatmakers continued to use mercury until 1941, There are early and late symptoms of mercury poisoning, depending on the level of exposure. The neurological changes that characterize Mad hatter’s disease occur after long-term exposure.

a rashskin itchinessmuscle paina metallic taste in the mouthsores or inflammation in the mouthvomitingstomach pain diarrhea sleep disturbancesa wet cough

Later symptoms of mercury poisoning may include :

irritability and a lack of patienceshyness and the desire to avoid people anxiety insomnia a tremor that begins in the hands and affects the face and headtrouble thinking or concentratingmemory losschanges in movement, which may become coarse or jerky

The World Health Organization (WHO) explain that exposure to mercury may be:

Inorganic: A person may be exposed through their job or through contact with mercury in dental fillings or cosmetics, for example. Organic: A person can be exposed to mercury in their diet.

The three most common sources of exposure to mercury are:

certain dental fillingscontaminated fishworkplaces

What does the Mad Hatter symbolize in Alice in Wonderland?

Through the Mad Hatter, Carroll is seen by some observers as critiquing England’s mistreatment of its workers and its mentally ill. During the Victorian era, workers in the textile industries were subjected to hazardous conditions, including exposure to lead and mercury.

What does the Cheshire Cat symbolism?

Introduction – The Cheshire Cat was another addition for the printed version of Alice and is now one of the best known and best loved of all the Wonderland creatures. Almost every illustrator chooses to represent it and it is present in almost every film version, beginning with the very first Alice in Wonderland film in 1903,

The Cheshire Cat is another character that employs the ” flawed logic ” of Wonderland, especially in his argument to prove that he is “mad,” “And how do you know that you’re mad?” “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?” “I suppose so,” said Alice. “Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased.

Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.” The Cat draws bad conclusions from faulty assumptions, but when Alice tries to call him out, he changes the subject. The result is once again a frustrated Alice. However, when the Cat appears again on the Queen’s croquet ground, Alice is actually pleased to see it.

“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with.Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her.” The Cheshire Cat is sometimes interpreted as a guiding spirit for Alice, as it is he who directs her toward the March Hare ‘s house and the mad tea party, which eventually leads her to her final destination, the garden.

The Cat also seems to have some sort of privileged knowledge of the workings of Wonderland, which combined with its ability to immaterialize is certainly spirit-like. It is also through the Cheshire Cat that we learn the essential secret of Wonderland: it’s mad !

Is the Hatter good or bad?

Answer and Explanation: No, the Mad Hatter is not a villain in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. He is an ultimately benign individual, despite his odd behavior. Like Wonderland’s other inhabitants, he wishes to go about his day without incurring the wrath of the Queen of Hearts, the temperamental ruler of Wonderland.

Does Alice fall in love with the Mad Hatter?

Alice falls in love with the Mad Hatter and they both want to get married. The moment captures their sparking love and happiness. Alice wants to stay forever in Wonderland with the Mad Hatter. But what is White Rabbit doing there and does not seem happy.

What is Hatter full name?

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tarrant Hightopp, also known as The Mad Hatter, is a fictional character in the 2010 film Alice in Wonderland and its 2016 sequel Alice Through the Looking Glass, based upon the original character from Lewis Carroll ‘s Alice novels. He is portrayed by actor Johnny Depp, He serves as the films’ male protagonist, Audience reception of the character was positive.

What are the 3 symbols in the raven?

There are three primary symbols in “The Raven”: the raven, the bust of Pallas, and the speaker’s chamber. All of these symbols work together to form a portrait of the speaker’s grief.

Why did the raven keep saying nevermore?

Answer and Explanation: In ‘The Raven,’ the raven says ‘nevermore’ because it appears to be the only word that the bird knows how to say. No matter what question the narrator asks the raven, his response is always the same.

Are ravens intelligent?

Sign up for Scientific American ’s free newsletters. ” data-newsletterpromo_article-image=”https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/4641809D-B8F1-41A3-9E5A87C21ADB2FD8_source.png” data-newsletterpromo_article-button-text=”Sign Up” data-newsletterpromo_article-button-link=”https://www.scientificamerican.com/page/newsletter-sign-up/?origincode=2018_sciam_ArticlePromo_NewsletterSignUp” name=”articleBody” itemprop=”articleBody”> Scientists and casual observers alike have known for years that ravens and their corvid relatives are extremely smart. But most studies use single experiments that provide a limited view of their overall intelligence. “Quite often, in single tasks, you’re just testing whether the bird can understand that you’re hiding something,” says Simone Pika, a cognitive scientist at Osnabrück University in Germany. A new study that that tries to address that deficit provides some of the best proof yet that ravens, including young birds of just four months of age, have certain types of smarts that are on par with those of adult great apes. The brainy birds performed just as well as chimpanzees and orangutans across a broad array of tasks designed to measure intelligence. “We now have very strong evidence to say that, at least in the tasks we used, ravens are very similar to great apes,” says Pika, lead author of the study. “Across a whole spectrum of cognitive skills, their intelligence is really quite amazing.” The findings, published in Scientific Reports, add to a growing body of evidence indicating that impressive cognitive skills are not solely the domain of primates but occur in certain species across the animal kingdom. In their new work, Pika and her colleagues turned to a large group of tests that study co-author Esther Herrmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, originally developed in 2007 to investigate cognitive performance in great apes and human children. Herrmann’s method measures general performance across a range of social and physical tasks rather than just one specific aspect of cognitive reasoning, as most prior approaches did. Herrmann and other scientists have used her now well-established technique to make additional cross-species comparisons in monkeys, dogs and parrots, Pika, Herrmann and their colleagues adapted and administered the same suite of tests to eight hand-raised ravens. The assays consisted of nine physical categories and six social ones, which were individually comprised of up to four different tasks repeated multiple times each. “We tried to have many tasks in many domains to have a comprehensive understanding of what ravens can do,” Pika says. “It was so much work!” Physical tests measured the birds’ abilities to track objects in space and to understand numbers. For example, researchers placed a reward under a certain cup and then moved that cup around with several others to see if the ravens could track which one contained the reward. Under the social test umbrella, the researchers measured how well the birds could follow cues given by an experimenter. The human signaled which cup contained a reward by looking or pointing at it, for instance, or showed the ravens how to access a reward and then observed whether they were able to apply what they observed. Ravens understand that objects can change their locations. Here, the experimenter switched the position of the cup that contained bait with an empty cup. That task was an easy one for the raven; it quickly found the cup with the bait and its just reward was forthcoming. Credit: Miriam J. Sima The authors repeated the same 33 tasks for each raven at four, eight, 12 and 16 months of age. They were surprised to find that by just four months old, the birds had mastered most tasks—to the point that, almost across the board, the young ravens’ results compared similarly to those of adult chimpanzees and orangutans that Herrmann had previously tested. “We didn’t expect that they’d master these tasks so quickly,” Pika says. She and her colleagues suspect that ravens’ cognitive development must be fast-tracked because they begin interacting more with their ecological and social environment at about four months of age. (Based on earlier studies comparing human performance against that of other apes, Herrmann surmises that children who are 2.5 years old would outperform ravens in social cognition tasks but would be about equal to the birds for most of the physical cognition tests.) In some ways, the findings about raven intelligence are expected, but they are important in terms of validating the birds’ cognitive performance, says Claudia Wascher, a behavioral ecologist at Anglia Ruskin University in England, who was not involved in the research. “Great apes and primates in general have, for quite a long time now, been praised for their ‘extraordinary’ cognitive abilities, but we now find that other taxa, including birds, show similar cognitive performance,” she says. “In order to fully understand the evolution of cognitive abilities in nonhumans, we need much broader comparisons like this study in ravens. And we need to test many more species.” While the new study provides some of the strongest evidence to date that ravens, like primates, possess a flexible, strong general intelligence, Pika points out that there are some important caveats. She and her colleagues only worked with eight birds. And the cognitive challenges the ravens were presented with in the captive environment differ from those they would face in the wild. The ravens in the study, for example, did not do as well as expected on spatial tasks—which was a surprise, given that birds spend their life navigating large areas by wing. The ravens could have also been thrown off because they were interacting with humans rather than members of their own species (or a closely related species, in the case of great apes and human handlers). “Ravens are quick learners, and these ones had been hand raised by humans, but there still is a dinosaur-mammal void between the species, which has to be overcome,” says Mathias Osvath, a cognitive scientist at Lund University in Sweden, who was not involved in the research. “Imagine having raven demonstrators for human toddlers or great apes. How would they perform?” If anything, he says, the new study might underestimate raven intelligence—and is a further testament to their flexible social skills.

What is the meaning of writing desk?

: a desk that often has a sloping top for writing on also : a portable case that contains writing materials and has a surface for writing

Why is the narrator reading books in the raven?

The Raven | Los Angeles Public Library Review: Poe’s narrative poem follows the development of an unnamed speaker/narrator whose interaction with a raven causes him to go mad. The story implies that the narrator lost his lover Lenore and is greatly devastated due to her death. He decides to cope by reading, hoping it will drive his mind off the terrible circumstances.

• On a cold December night, the narrator hears knocking on his chamber door and wonders who it could be at this time.
• He opens it only to find no one, which causes him to question more.
• He looks around into the darkness and sees no one.
• Upon closing the door, a raven enters.
• The narrator humorously asks the bird for its name and hears it speak.

Shocked by the raven’s ability for speech, the narrator begins to question it as if it were a person to see if it can give him answers and solutions. Like many of Poe’s other pieces, this one inspired the feeling of grim due to the poem’s darker tone.

1. He accomplishes and achieves this tone by using words in his diction associated with feelings of despair and sorrow, such as “haunted” and “grim,” in addition to depicting the setting with a cold and unsettling vibe.
2. I would give the book a rating of 4 due to the elements it possesses.
3. I enjoyed how Poe uses the raven as a symbolic figure for the narrator’s pain and sorrow to further display its message to the reader by portraying the raven as a dark figure who casts a shadow upon the narrator.

I also liked how the book sounded like a poem. Throughout the dialogue, it connects the narrator’s thoughts well, allowing the reader to comprehend his thinking without disruptions, such as abstract or vague language, as seen in other poems that need to be read more than once to better understand them.

What is the narrator obsessed with in the raven?

Edgar Allen Poe is famous for eerie literary works preoccupied with terror and littered with mystery. “The Raven,” arguably his most famous text, is no exception. The Gothic and Fantastic elements that permeate the poem are most evident in the second, thirteenth, fourteenth, and eighteenth stanzas.

These passages are the most explicit in terms of the division between the real and unreal. These two concepts are juxtaposed in a concrete way through the narrator (real) and the raven (unreal). The raven serves as the representation of the unreal because it is nothing more than an anthropomorphized version of the narrator’s subconscious despair.

In this way, the poem consists of a pseudo-dialogue between the narrator and his own psychological echo. Every time he addresses the empty night, the raven reciprocates by reminding him of his pain using a single word that is the embodiment of the narrator’s despair and anguish.

This repetition of “nevermore” posits the raven as a figment of the narrator’s imagination, thus resolving the mystery between reality and fantasy. To understand the nature of the relationship between the narrator and the raven, it is helpful to examine Tzvetan Todorov’s concept of the Fantastic. First and foremost, for a work to be considered “fantastic,” there must be a hesitation on the part of the reader in distinguishing reality from unreality.

Furthermore, a character in the text must share this uncertainty. Most would agree that a talking raven achieves this on both ends. Eventually, a decision must be made between the two, while still accepting the strangeness as literal rather than metaphorical or allegorical.

When this choice occurs, the idea of the fantastic breaks down into one of two subcategories. If the events in the work are deemed strange, yet explicable in the natural world, the fantastic becomes the uncanny. If the events are supernatural and inexplicable, the fantastic becomes the marvelous. To simplify, the uncanny is real but unfamiliar; the marvelous is impossible.

By replacing reality and unreality with uncanny and marvelous respectively, it is easier for the reader to discern between the two and obtain a more complete understanding of “The Raven.” In order for conflict between the uncanny and marvelous to exist, the reader must first be able to share in a character’s hesitant thoughts and ambiguous frame of mind.

• The narrator’s purposeful detachment from reality makes him an unreliable source of information, thus causing hesitation on the part of the reader regarding what is real.
• In the second stanza, Poe writes, “Eagerly I wished the morrow;- vainly I had sought to borrow / From my books surcease of sorrow- sorrow for the lost Lenore-…” (lines 2-3).

This is an early warning sign that the narrator is losing – or possibly relinquishing – his grasp on reality. In order to quell the very real pain of his loss, he attempts a mental escape into the very unreal world of books. This expatriation from his own sense of rationality creates a rift in the narrator’s consciousness that will only increase as the poem continues.

When the raven enters, the uncanny and marvelous reach maximum conflict capacity. To determine how the fantastic will break down – and thus resolve the conflict between reality and unreality – the raven must be assigned a certain role. He is either a mystical talking bird in a marvelous literary world, or he is a psychotic manifestation of the narrator’s subconscious desire to be reunited with his lost lover in an uncanny literary world.

Based on the narrator’s tenuous grip on reality, the latter seems to be more plausible. The pivotal moment of decision occurs in the thirteenth stanza, after the raven has answered every question or assertion posed by the narrator with “nevermore.” As he is contemplating why the bird continues to reply as such, he says, “This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining / On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er, / But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er, / She shall press, ah, nevermore…” (lines 2-5).

By answering his own question in the very same fashion as the raven, he creates a mirror between the two. Because each “nevermore” draws an anxious response from the narrator, it is easy to see that the word has been constantly planted in the reader’s head in order to draw attention to the narrator’s suffering.

This repetition conveys the narrator’s obsession with the raven and reflects his repressed grief over the loss of Lenore. The habitual association of a single word with anguish and despondency creates a conspicuous connection between the raven and the narrator, revealing each character as a fractured part of a single psyche.

Further evidence of the narrator’s neuroticism and mental split is given as he suddenly smells incense and begins to praise God for granting him relief: “‘Wretch,’ I cried, ‘thy God hath lent thee- by these angels he hath sent thee / Respite- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore! / Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!’ / Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore…’” (lines 3-6).

This immediate, unprompted switch from depression to joy, then back to angst in the next stanza reinforces the idea that this man is not mentally stable and is absolutely ruled by a despair so intense that it has developed a mind of its own. The final stanza of the poem marks the strongest confirmation that the raven exists only in the narrator’s mind.

1. Poe writes, “And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting…And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor / Shall be lifted- nevermore!” (lines 1&5-6).
2. The poem starts just as the narrator is beginning to fall asleep.
3. Considering the events that unfold, it could be argued that he did fall asleep and the entire poem should be read as a dream sequence.

By this token the work would fall into the category of marvelous, based on the fact that the occurrences are more readily categorized as inexplicable in a dream world. However, in these lines the narrator points out that the bird has been there for some time, thus nixing the idea that the whole poem has been a dream.

The way he refers to the raven’s shadow in the final line seems to reinforce the idea that he is incapable of clawing his way out of the all-consuming despair that has plagued him from the beginning. In Poe’s “The Raven,” the repeated use of the word “nevermore” provides a key for deciphering the true meaning of the relationship between the narrator and the raven.

It is important to see the word in the overall context of the narrator’s desperate, paranoid, and delusional psyche. Keeping this in mind while using Todorov’s fantastic as a reference point for the conflict between the uncanny and marvelous, it becomes clear that the raven is an uncanny manifestation of the narrator’s subconscious, thus resolving the conflict between reality and unreality.

Why is the narrator reading in the raven?

Poe’s unnamed narrator is a scholar who is mourning the death of his beloved, Lenore. He is alone in his house on a cold December midnight, trying to distract himself from his thoughts of her by reading old books.