? The reader begins to doubt, and it is just this uncertainty that allows the reader to identify with the speaker's uncertainties about ever being able to see his lover Lenore again. Outside there is the real or imagined tempest and the "Plutonian shore" (stanzas 8 and 17) which Pollin associates with an "ambiguous source and symbol of disaster to man." (Pollin 145) Finally, the entrance of the Raven occurs though a window, usually for seeing out, not coming in. This reversal of expectations hints at the poem's other reversals: a bird that can speak revealingly, and a harbinger of death after the death has occurred. These details contribute to the tone of indefinite perception, as if the speaker is either about to challenge or be challenged by reality.
The speaker is stationed at several halfway points himself: this obscures the reader's sense of the definite even as it reveals the scholar's character. At the beginning of the tale the speaker says, "Ah, distinctly I remember...," which indicates that there is a substantial time gap between when the events of this tale occurred and when the tale is told. This tells the reader two things: 1) in the indefinite space of memory there may be a haze of misperception, and 2) the events of this tale are still critically important t
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