Flying South: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’ in Three Stories by Flannery O’Connor

Abstract

The influence of Edgar Allan Poe in many later authors is beyond any doubt. Themes, characters, locations, scenes, etc., have been used by writers belonging to a wide range of varieties. Among them, Flannery O’Connor acknowledged how Poe had influenced her fiction, and these influences can be traced through some of her most iconic pieces. This essay focuses on how O’Connor retold some of the key elements of the poem “The Raven” and included them in three of her short stories.