in the book "THE RAVEN" what does the raven mean when he says nevermore?

Answer 1

He means that the man will never see Lenore again.

Answer 2

In the story, Poe symbollizes the narrators deceased wife with the Raven. the narrator's wife recently died, and he is lamenting her death. The raven then comes to terrorize the character if you will. Many people interpret this differently, but my lit class went on a theory that the wife was murdered, and has come back to haunt the narrator in the form of a raven. and the quoth 'nevermore' was the reinforcement, that nevermore will he be able to look upon her face, or share her company. The raven uses ' nevermore' to drive the narrator mad.
Another good tangent: did the narrator murder his wife unbeknownst to him? and is that why the raven appears?

Edited 12/6/2006:
One more thing... the Raven is NOT a poem.. nor is it a book. It is a short story, as were many of Poe's works.

Answer 3

The speaker is anguished over the death of a loved one and tries to seek solace by asking a series of questions to which a sympathetic response would be a positive answer. Poe's raven always uses "Nevermore", a negative response, plunging the speaker further and further into madness.

This is a good extract from Wikipedia,

"The Raven" is an excellent example of arabesque writing as well as grotesque. In addition to the speaker's physical terror throughout the poem, there are a great many psychologically disturbing sequences and images described as well.

The speaker quickly learns what the bird will say in response to his questions, and he knows the answer will be a negative ("Nevermore"). However, he asks questions, repeatedly, which would optimistically have a "positive" answer, "Is there balm in Gilead? Will I meet Lenore in Aidenn?" To each question the Raven's predestined reply is "Nevermore", which only increases the speaker's anguish.

The themes of self-perpetuating anguish and self-destroying obsession over the death of a beautiful woman are in themselves the most poetic of topics, according to Poe (see his essay "The Philosophy of Composition"). The torture which the bird has brought to the speaker was already in the speaker's ruminating character—the bird only brought out what was inside. The raven itself is a mechanical process: deterministic, preordained, one word being the bird's "only stock and store." The speaker throws himself against this process in a form of masochism, and lets it destroy him and consume him ("my soul from out that shadow shall be lifted—Nevermore!")

Answer 4

First of all, it's a poem, not a book.

The narrator of the poem longs for a time when his love for the lost Lenore gave his life meaning, and joy, and hope. The black bird continually croaks "nevermore," reminding the narrator that her death has doomed him to despair for the rest of his days.

Answer 5

It means that Lenore will never be alive again, and that the narrator will never see her again, neither here nor in the afterlife.