Emily Dickinson

Observations: Upon first glance, many literary elements popped out at me. To begin, it was obvious that, in typical Dickinson fashion, there were many dashes. These dashes are used to indicate an interruption or abrupt shift in thought and to add emphasis. More importantly, they are there to remind the reader to stop and take a longer pause to reflect back on what was trying to be said at that point within the poem. These dashes, from simply looking at the poem, also interrupt the rhythmic flow and help lend a hand in helping Dickinson create a unique form of diction. Alliteration is also a key element throughout this poem as there are many ‘s’, ‘w’, and ‘f’ sounds. For example, there is line within the poem that says, “When One died for Truth, was lain…” With this, there is a continuous “w” sound rolling off of the tongue. Assonance is also noticed throughout the poem in that Dickinson uses ‘oo’ sounds with the words beauty, tomb, who, truth, and room. In terms of rhyme and meter, the poem is set with a fixed rhyme pattern that took the form of ABCB. There are also many moments throughout the poem in which words are randomly capitalized. Although they look as if they were capitalized sporadically and without thought, these words were written this way to place emphasis upon the meaning of the words and the messages behind them. The structure of this poem (and most of Dickinson’s poems for that matter) is a closed or fixed form dealing with four line stanzas, or quatrains. Figures of speech used, just by observing the poem, were metaphors, personification, and metonymy. For example, this whole poem focuses on death and truth – two things that are ‘intangible’ objects without life to them. Yet, Dickinson portrays them in a way in wh...

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...age within the words of her poem, or even speak about her fears regarding critics and her poetry. Although this is just a random thought, and probably irrelevant to the poem, it is something that has continually surfaced my mind while analyzing this poem over the past week.

Evaluation: In being that I am a nursing student, and one who has always had a secret love for poetry, I found this poem to be compiled wonderfully. In keeping with a very realistic theme, Dickinson was able to get her message across. This message being that life is the cause of pain, disease, sorrow, and even happiness and all these elements combined are what make us who we are. Not to mention, she only used four lines and was able to get such a message across. It is with this technique and writing style alone that I give props for effectively expressing the meaning and point behind this poem.