Edgar Allen Poe's Ligeia: Hallucinations

In the short story "Ligeia" by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator of the story provides strong evidence that the woman he obsesses about, Ligeia, may not even exist. Throughout the story the reader will see reason to doubt the existence of Ligeia because unreliability of the narrator. Through drug use, language use, imagery, and spiritual references the reader is able to develop a strong case for the non-existence of Ligeia.

The narrator in "Ligeia"is unreliable at best because of his heavy opium usage throughout the story: "It was the radiance of an opium dream" (1525). The reader learns that the narrator knows the affects of opium all too well to be just a simple witness of the drug. The narrator seems to enjoy and be addicted to the affects that opium has on the mind; he never views opium in a negative light. When Ligeia becomes sick the narrator views her through eyes filtered with opium: "I had become a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my labors and my orders had taken a colouring from my dreams" (1529). Once again the narrator is discussing his attraction to opium and how he does not want to be brought down from his high by "ordinary" life. The narrator is consistently striving for the out of ordinary experiences that came cause harm to one's mind. The narrator becomes lost in his mind at times during his opium dreams and it is then that he is recalling Ligeia before she supposedly died: "In the excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered in the iron shackles of the drug) I would call aloud upon her name" (1531). The opium is bringing the images and remembrance of Ligeia to the surface of the narrator's mind which will make the reader wonder if Ligeia is simply a hallucination of a drug induced addict. The narrator also admits to a mild hallucination of the mind when he is seeing things in the one room. The narrator states it could be caused "by the opium" (1532) or that shadows were caused by his imagination because he is lost in the recesses of his mind: " I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate dose of opium, and heeded things but little" (1532). With all of the drug use that the narrator partakes in, one can not help but question the stability and condition of the narrator's mind.

The narrator's mind can be seen as deteriorating by simply the looking at the first line of the story: "I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia" (1525). This is an odd statement from the narrator because if Ligeia is the love and joy of the narrator's life than he should at least be able to remember how or where he first met her. By not remembering this important detail about Ligeia it calls into question whether or not the narrator has ever met Ligeia and therefore if she is perhaps an opium hallucination that comes and goes with the drug. The narrator can also not even remember her paternal name: "I have never known the paternal name of her who was my friend and betrothed" (1525). Yaohua Shi states that in the time in which "Ligeia" takes place knowing the paternal name of a betrothed would have been very important because many people were concerned with assets, lands, and titles that would come from such a marriage (488). The fact that the narrator knows none of this is evidence that Ligeia is an illusion of an opium dream because later in the story the narrator knows his "second" wife's name and where she came from with no difficulty: "lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine" (1530). The narrator's second wife is someone he deems unimportant yet she is important to the reader in understanding the history of Ligeia. It makes the reader question why would the narrator know her name and title if he never loved her yet he loved Ligeia and can't remember any of that information about her. Ligeia is also placed, by the narrator, higher than any mortal woman could be in terms of personality, beauty, and willingness to love.

The narrator considers Ligeia to be flawless in many if not all aspects of life. Carrie Zlotnick-Woldenberg states that no one person is truly flawless and that is part of human nature; everyone has flaws (410). Yet the narrator is unable to see any in Ligeia: "her knowledge was such as I had never known in woman" (1528). This again puts the issue forward that maybe Ligeia never existed and is what the narrator believes to be the ideal of all women: " In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her" (1525). Again Ligeia is perceived as something no person could actually achieve and that she is more like an angel or spirit as opposed to being a physical entity. The narrator also will never see Ligeia in the wrong; a trait that is very common in any mortal individual: "I have never known her at fault" (1528). Everyone is at fault some time or other in their lives and if Ligeia has never been at fault than she can be considered a mere ideal for individuals to strive for: "I was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy" (1528). Ligeia tends to be placed up on a pedestal as a god for the narrator to worship and for him to receive that love back equally: "For long hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowings of a heart whose more than passionate devotion had amounted to idolatry" (1529).

Ligeia is often juxtaposed with shadowy and hazy imagery that can contribute to her spirit like appearance and personality: "She came and departed like a shadow" (1525). Ligeia seems to appear as a shadow would; slowly creeping up upon the narrator in the way that opium slowly begins to cloud his mind and shroud it in fancy. The narrator even describes one encounter with Ligeia in a dream like way: "an airy and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos" (1525). Not only is Ligeia compared to a vision she is also compared to non-existent persons by the daughters of Delos. It should occur to the reader immediately that something is different about Ligeia if the narrator can only compare Ligeia to a fictional character and to that encounter as one that occurs in a dream. Even after Ligeia has "died" in his mind he continues to have vision like encounters with Ligeia: "And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia" (1533). The narrator will continue to see Ligeia because she is a part of his mind and that when he sinks into an opium dream and finds Ligeia there it is because he is searching his mind to bring her back to life, just like when she comes back to him at the end of the story.

Throughout "Ligeia" the narrator provides the reader with ample evidence to question the character of Ligeia and her existence. It seems that Ligeia never existed in the physical from and was an opium hallucination of an unreliable, drug addicted narrator. Through the narrator's drug usage, descriptions, and depictions of Ligeia the reader should be find enough proof that Poe wanted his readers to question the existence of Ligeia.

Works Cited

1. Poe, Edgar Allen. "Ligeia" The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 6^th Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

2. Shi, Yaohua."The enigmatic Ligeia/`Ligeia' " Studies in Short Fiction 28 (Fall1991) 485 - 497

3. Zlotnick-Woldenberg, Carrie. "Edgar Allan Poe's `Ligeia': An Object-Relational Interpretation" American Journal of Psychotherapy 53 (Summer 1999) 403 - 413