Ligeia

Ligeia Summary | Ligeia Summary

The narrator does not know how or when he met the Lady Ligeia. He believes it may have been in some old and large city; at first he mentions that she surely must have mentioned her family, but that he can't remember ever even knowing her last name.

He does not, however, have a loss of memory when it comes to what he refers to as the person of Ligeia. She was tall and thin with a "quiet ease" (pg. 161). He is in awe of her dark beauty, going on about her eyes, her nose, her lips, and her skin. It is the expression in her eyes, however, that drew his passion. The intensity of Ligeia, he says, is somewhat captured in a quote by Joseph Glanvill:

"And the will lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will prevailing all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." (pg. 165)

Ligeia was also very educated, fluent in many languages, extremely knowledgeable of mathematics, and most especially, well-versed in metaphysical investigations - the area in which the narrator was most interested during the time of their marriage. Sadly, at some point, Ligeia became ill. As the sicknesses progresses, the narrator understands that she will die. Both husband and wife struggle vigorously with death, spending much of their remaining time declaring their love to each other. On her final day alive, Ligeia asks the narrator to read aloud a poem she had written about a "conqueror worm." She cries out to God, and then whispers her last words; again the quote from Glanvill.

Following Ligeia's death, the narrator wanders the world for several months, finally settling down and purchasing an old English abbey to live in. Its outward dreary appearance is a reflection of the narrator's empty spirit, and yet he attempts to cheer himself by furnishing the inside extravagantly.

It is also during this time that he marries the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine. He goes into great detail about the bridal chamber and its décor, though he says he cannot remember any moments of importance in the actual marriage. The drapery material is the focal point of the room, as it covers not only the windows but the floor and the furniture, as well. It is a gold material, spotted with arabesque figures of jet black. The patterns are such that they appear to change depending on the angle from which they are viewed.

The narrator admits that his new wife grows to dread his temper, which actually pleases him as he hates her. He has sunken into an opium addiction and spends all of his time in melancholy remembrance of his dead wife. About two months into their marriage, Rowena becomes ill. In her feverish state, she tells the narrator of strange sights and sounds she is experiencing but he dismisses her tales as part of her sickness. She finally recovers but promptly becomes even more ill, confined to bed with a malady no doctor can diagnose.

With this second bout of illness, Rowena's "imaginings" become more frequent and more frenzied, until the narrator almost begins to believe her. One night she becomes so distraught that he goes and fetches her some wine to keep her from fainting. The wine calms her, but the narrator, high on opium, imagines he sees a strange shadow on the floor. He then hears something that sounds like light footsteps on the carpet and sees what appears to be three or four drops of a red liquid drop into Rowena's wine glass. She does not notice and continues to drink.

The narrator believes the drops to be a result of his opium haze, but strangely, from then on Rowena becomes progressively worse; by the third night she is dead. Sitting alone with her shrouded corpse, the narrator keeps a vigil next to her bed, enduring wild opium-fueled visions much like those Rowena had spoken of. Eventually, as always, his thoughts turn back to Ligeia.

As the night wears on, he thinks he hears a sound from the body - then it seems as if there might be a slight color to her face. He immediately tries to rouse her, believing maybe she has been declared dead in haste, but she quickly suffers a relapse and is deader than before. He goes back to his thoughts of Ligeia, but again Rowena seems on the verge of life. The narrator again attempts to revive her but the results are the same. This goes on repeatedly all night, until finally, he gives up his efforts and simply watches from a chair. Finally, as the night begins to turn to early morning, the body is alive and mobile, and she is standing in the middle of the room - but though it was Rowena who had been wrapped in the shrouds of death, it is the Lady Ligeia who now stands before him.