Emily Dickinson Literary Devices

Emily Dickinson’s poem uses symbolism, metaphors, and tone to portray the message that she will never live her life selfishly if she can end her suffering and save someone from experiencing the same pain she is.

In lines one and two, Dickinson uses usage of words to portray her desire to save someone from the pain and for someone to end her agony. In the first line, Dickinson explains how if in some way she was ever able to prevent someone from the torture of a heart break, she will never feel or be egocentric again. The way she explains her desire by writing the word 'vain', indicates that she has or is experiencing the pain of a heartache or of losing the potential love of her life, a relative, or a dear friend. By saying vain, she also

indicates that she will find a purpose for her life and actually do something. She will help the person suffering out of goodwill. By also indicating the misery she is or has went through, she supports her opening statement of why she desires to salvage someone from the pain, since she knows how distressing and painful it feels. This pain could have been caused not only my ending a relationship, but by also losing a loved one to death.
In these lines three and four, Dickson describes the intensity of the aching and how she desires from someone to take it away or to 'cool' it down. By using the word 'cool' it makes the reader assume that the pain is a burning pain which makes it hurt even more. In the third line of the poem, by stating how she wishes she could end or lessen the 'life aching' from someone, she really means that the pain she feels seems as if it is going to last for the remainder of her life.
In the fifth and sixth line of the poem, Dickinson uses symbolism to explain how she feels or felt delicate, fragile and helpless. She portrays this by choosing a robin which is a small, delicate bird. By adding on the statement that the robin is fainting, she adds on to the hidden message of that she felt possibly physically sick. Fainting is caused by lack of oxygen, so this indicates that Emily was or did possibly suffered from fainting of how ill the emotional pain was making her and that she could not bar and think about the simple idea that she is or was left alone. When Emily adds on to the statement of helping a fainting robin by stating that she would help them onto their nest again, she indicates that she wishes someone helped her back into to her 'home'. A nest it is a robin's home, and in this specific line it is referring not to Emily's literal house, but to the metaphor her home stands for. A nest or in other words home symbolizes the feeling of safety and comfort. Emily wants to regain those feelings that she lost along with her loved one.
In the final line, Emily restates how she will live by doing things out of goodwill and will no longer only think about herself. It shows the sacrifice she is willing to take in order to take away all the pain. Living life without being vain and thinking and acting for and about others without putting yourself is a really big action to take. It is extremely complex to do this for your entire life, but of course it is not impossible. By choosing a grand sacrifice, Dickinson portrays how desperate she is to end her suffering. Her sacrifice she is willing to take also shows how deep the wound she is left with is and how she feels that her life no longer has a purpose without her beloved.