The Raven darkness. The use of the raven—the "devil bird"—also suggests this. This devil image is emphasized by the narrator's belief that the raven is "from the Night's Plutonian shore", or a messenger from the afterlife, referring to Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld (also known as Dis Pater in Roman mythology). A direct allusion to Satan also appears: "Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore..." Poe chose a raven as the central symbol in the story because he wanted a "non-reasoning" creature capable of speech. He decided on a raven, which he considered "equally capable of speech"
The Nine Billion Names of God time that the monks are pasting the final printed names into their holy books. Then they notice that "overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out." In 2004, "The Nine Billion Names of God" won the retrospective Hugo Award for Best Short Story for the year 1954. "Kirkus Reviews" called it "quietly remarkable" and "the Guardian" considered it to be a "wonderful apocalyptic rib-tickler". Stating that the story "introduced many Western readers to an intriguing speculation in Oriental religions", Carl Sagan in 1978 listed "The Nine Billion Names of God" as among the "rare few science‐fiction [stories that] combine