Ligeia

    In Ligeia, by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator describes a fair skinned, dark haired, blacked eye, woman as his wife. The narrator believes that she has an exquiste beauty, "In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium dream."(pg. 2) The narrator often refers to opium, "... I was wild with excitement of an immoderate dose of opium."(pg.10) This suggests that the narrator could be unreliable in how truthfull his story is. The visions of Ligeia and his memories of her may all have been a drug induced hallucination. There is a possibility that Ligeia may have really existed, but there are so many happenings in the story to cause doubt. The opium induced high is just one of the reasons for doubt. The narrator refers to Ligeia as his "lost love" (pg.13), but he "cannot remember how, when or even precisely where, [he] became acquainted with the lady Ligeia."(pg.1) It is unreasonable that the narrator can not remember where he met his true love; it can only be explained that Ligeia does not really exist. The narrator compares to common types of beauty in Ligeia: one is the fair, dark hair, and dark eyes of Ligeia, and the other is the fair, blonde hair, and blue eyes of Lady Tremaine. The narrators diction is unreliable which can lead us to believe that Ligeia does no