A Narrow Fellow in the Grass by Emily Dickinson Essay

In the poem, by Emily Dickinson, the speaker conveys multiple literary devices to show the complexity of the death of her friend on “The last night she lived.” The speaker utilizes juxtaposition in the first stanza in order to show an extreme pain towards the idea of death yet treat it as an understatement. Another emotion the speaker conveys through diction is how inevitable the death of her friend is, how she can do nothing about it other than be with her by her side. In the third stanza the speaker utilizes imagery when she talks about one room being filled with death and the other of those who will live. Lastly, the speaker facilitates diction to convey the jealousy for the woman who has died and no longer has to deal with emotions when she says,” A jealousy for her arose.” All of these emotions and actions all contribute to the complex attitude the speaker portrays in the poem.

Emily Dickinson was an exceptional writer through the mid-late 1800’s. She never published any of her writings and it wasn’t until after her death that they were even discovered. The complexity of understanding her poems is made prevalent because of the fact that she, the author, cannot expound on what her writing meant. This causes others to have to speculate and decide for themselves the meaning of any of her poems. There are several ways that people can interpret Emily Dickinson’s poems; readers often give their opinion on which of her poems present human understanding as something boundless and unlimited or something small and limited, and people always speculate Dickinson’s view of the individual self.

It is apparent from the first line of the poem that author is in a state of overriding fear travelling through the unknown: likening the road to an “old snake shedding its skin.” A snake is a clear representation of childhood fear and youthful paranoia, due to its intimidating nature. Walcott compares the path to a snake because he fears it just like a snake, to him the path is daunting and potentially deadly at first. The author not only compares the road to a snake but a snake shedding its skin. This paints a grotesque image for readers and illustrates how he views his initial journey with anything but enthusiasm. The author is in the unfamiliar wilderness searching for not only the storyteller’s house but himself. His state of childhood terror is only counterbalanced by his encounter with the storyteller.

The poem “Before I got my eye put out” portrays the idea that most living things are unable to recognize the beauty of sight until they lose it. The speaker reflects the true beauty of the world when she says “The Motions of the Dipping Birds-/ The Morning’s Amber Road-/ For mine-/ to look at when I liked-/ The News would strike me dead-” (14-17). This demonstrates the image of nature that the speaker “looks at” but actually “sees” the beauty of sight. Dickinson conveys the idea that one’s vision from

The third stanza describes the snake as “cool and gleaming as a braided whip” (9-10). Describing the snake as a braided whip demonstrates the intricate woven pattern of the snake’s scales and the poet’s appreciation for nature and its’ beauty. The snake is not a useless piece of rubber, but a beautiful and vibrant part of nature. “He is as beautiful and quiet as a bead brother” (10-11). The snake is quiet, makes no sound, and snuggles into

The last two lines of the poem are a timid reflection on what might happen “Had I the Art to stun myself/ With Bolts—of Melody!” (23-24). The idea that creation is a power that can get loose and injure even the creator illuminates why in this poem the artist positions herself firmly as a mere spectator. In these first two poems, we meet a Dickinson who is not entirely familiar to us—even though we are accustomed to her strong desire for privacy, these poems can be startling in the way they reveal the intensity of Dickinson’s fears. She is, after all, shrinking from what is dearest to her—nature, one of her favorite subjects, becomes a harsh judge, and poetry, her favored medium of communication, can suddenly render the reader “impotent” and the writer “stun[ned]” (19, 23). The extremity of her positions in shrinking from the small and beautiful things she loves creates the sense that this is just the beginning of a journey by leaving so much room for change.

Stanza one explains how Dickinson used the words to express about how it’s going to be a wild night. (maybe referring to partying) To have this night to shine to make it special almost like a treat. Saying “thee” Dickison might have been referring to people but she could have referred it to the wild night. She also used the word luxury in the context that means it probably doesn’t happen very often so it will most likely make it really special. Stanza two explains by the capitalization of her words. I really enjoyed really this stanza. It really stands out to me. The world “futile” it means pointless. “Heart” trying to highlight these words because this night should be wild and fun. It should be a free night, no specific plans just be a open

what the author wants to imply past the surface level of the work. In Emily Dickinson’s poem

In the poem the first word is always capitalized, and from there the words capitalized are words that almost inflict pain in themselves. For example the words “Pain, Blank,When, Future, Infinite, Past, and New,”(Dickinson 650) are some of the words Dickinson capitalizes all of them are words that can mentally cause suffering. Each of those words are unknown they are words that we see and they cause us to remember or think about something thats either painful or unknown to most which in turn helps with the theme of pain always being there no matter

In addition to these three stages, the final stage of eternity was symbolized in the last two lines of the poem, the “Horses Heads” (23), leading “towards Eternity” (24). Dickinson fathomed the incomprehensible progression of life by unraveling its complexity with figurative symbols. Emily Dickinson dresses the scene such that mental pictures of sight, feeling, and sound come to life. The imagery begins the moment Dickinson invites Her reader into the “Carriage.” Death “slowly” takes the readers on a sight seeing trip where they see the stages of life. The first site “We” passed was the “School, where Children strove” (9). Because it deals with an important symbol, —the “Ring”—this first scene is perhaps the most important. One author noted that “the children, at recess, do not play (as one would expect them to) but strive” (Monteiro 20).

This poem is written in ballad form which is odd because one would think of a ballad and think a love story or an author gushing on about nature not an allegory about personified Death. Dickinson both unites and contrasts love/courtship with death, experimenting with both reader’s expectations and the poetic convention dictating specific poem form. This is why Dickinson is widely hailed because of her unconventional writing methods.

     Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous authors in American History, and a good amount of that can be attributed to her uniqueness in writing. In Emily Dickinson's poem 'Because I could not stop for Death,' she characterizes her overarching theme of Death differently than it is usually described through the poetic devices of irony, imagery, symbolism, and word choice.

Two of Dickinson’s universal techniques are metaphor and the fresh application of language; both techniques result in powerful images, and can be seen in two of her poems that focus on nature themes, “ A Bird came down the Walk” and “narrow Fellow.” She closes the poem, “ A Bird” with a stanza equating flight through the air with movement through water,

I am going out on the doorstep, to get you some new—green grass—I shall pick it down in the corner, where you and I used to sit, and have long fancies. And perhaps the dear little grasses were growing all the while—and perhaps they heard what we said, but they can't tell!

Emily Dickinson a modern romantic writer, whose poems considered imaginative and natural, but also dark as she uses death as the main theme many times in her writings. She made the death look natural and painless since she wanted the reader to look for what after death and not be stuck in that single moment. In her poems imagination play a big role as it sets the ground for everything to unfold in a magical way. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. She turned increasingly to this style that came to define her writing. The poems are rich in aphorism and dense