Summary Of A Bird Came Down The Walk By Emily Dickinson

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Romanticism in poetic works centers around the idea that humankind is able to find peace and solace with the natural world. While Romantic writers often describe nature as a beautiful paradise, the wilderness can also be dangerous. In the poem A Bird Came Down the Walk, Emily Dickinson illustrates the juxtaposition between the civilized society of man and the behavior of animals in the natural world. The speaker of the poem is seen observing a bird feeding on its prey, while the small creature remains unaware of it spectator. However, once the speaker has been discovered, the bird is frightened and flies away. This encounter between the human and the bird demonstrates Dickinson’s attempt to convey the differences that exist between nature and mankind. Dickinson incorporates the use of vivid imagery and figurative language to describe the behavior of creatures found in the natural world. These literary devices, alongside the word choice and tone the writer uses in the poem, serve to emphasize the theme of humankind’s alienation from nature due to the ignorance in man’s conception of superiority.
Throughout the poem, Dickinson uses imagery to successfully paint a picture of the speaker’s observations of the bird that conveys both the danger and beauty of nature. The behavior of the bird living and reacting to its natural environment is depicted with sensuous descriptions. For example, the speaker observes the bird feeding off its prey as it “bit an Angleworm in halves and ate the fellow, raw,” (line 3-4). This depicts an image of savagery in the bird as it shreds the worm into pieces while it is still alive. The bird is more concerned about survival and satisfying its basic needs by resorting to its primal instincts. Dickinson cont...

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...d’s alienation from the natural world. Dickinson’s use of imagery helps to convey both the beauty and danger found in nature that separates man from the natural world. By personifying the bird, Dickinson is able to express the grace of nature through the polite and respectful demeanor the bird carries. The poem also symbolically represents the beauty of nature through metaphorically comparing the flight of a bird to wings of a butterfly gently propelling over the sea. It is this same beauty and grace that separates nature from man because Dickinson shows how man (society) is a threat to the bird (nature). The message this poem conveys is that even though humanity believes it to be a superior force to nature, it will never be able to have control over it. Dickinson explains this through the fleeing bird, which represents mankind’s separation from the natural world.

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