Sunrise on the Reaping

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of violence, death, and alcohol abuse.

All of the Covey are named for a ballad or poem. Edgar Allen Poe’s narrative poem ”The Raven” is Lenore Dove’s “name song.” Throughout the novel, Haymitch repeats stanzas from ”The Raven” with increasing frequency as his life begins to parallel the plot of the poem, transforming the poem into a key motif.

In ”The Raven”, the poem’s narrator is haunted by the loss of a woman named Lenore, presumably his late lover. He is awash in “sorrow for the lost Lenore— For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—” (110). He seeks “nepenthe,” a (possibly fictional) drug that will erase memories of his loss: “Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!” (55)

Answering a tapping on his door, the speaker is confronted by a raven, who repeats the word nevermore. The narrator asks several questions, such as whether he can forget Lenore and if they will one day be reunited: “Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—” (84) To each question, the raven replies nevermore, driving the speaker further into despair.