Analysis Of Emily Dickinson's The Bustle In A House

Additionally in the third stanza Dickinson refers to steps of her life with imagery. Firstly when the speaker wrote “We passed the School, where Children strove” (2.1), she is illustrating how her adolescent years are gone. She continues by saying “We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain” (3.3). This symbolism refers to her working years and considers them to be done with. Ultimately

The Bustle in a House is a poem by Emily Dickinson about the painful loss one feels after the death of a loved one. Dickinson was quite familiar with the kind of pain expressed in her poem. Her father, mother, nephew, and three close friends, all died within an eight-year period. It is no small wonder that a common theme in Dickinson s poetry is death. She uses many literary devices, including structure, imagery, figurative language, sound devices, and capitalization; to convey the hurt one experiences when a loved one passes on.

However, Dickinson’s poem is very different from Whitman’s in structure and language. In “324,” the speaker explains how they observe Sabbath, in nature rather than going to a service, when saying “With a Bobolink for a Chorister — / And an Orchard, for a Dome —” (lines 4-5). Dickinson, like Whitman, provides visual imagery; of a bird instead of the Church choir and an orchard instead of the “Dome,” which represents a church. In these lines, readers can envision the beautiful nature scene that the speaker treasures. Furthermore, as Whitman also did, Dickinson uses auditory imagery as the speaker explains further how the spend their Sabbath, “And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church, / Our little Sexton — sings” (lines 8-9). Here, the sounds of the Church’s bell is what the speaker traded for the charming bird’s song in their form of worship. Like Whitman, Dickinson uses imagery to illustrate to readers her preference for nature that connects her to God and religion, unlike for many others who choose to attend church. Moreover, in contrast to Whitman’s poem, Dickinson writes in an abcb rhyme scheme where the second and fourth lines rhyme and have a meter. To demonstrate, every even-numbered line rhymes; Home” and “Dome,” “Wings” and “sings,” “long” and “along.”

This provokes the readers' psyche of a lonesome, fragile individual, standing isolated at the end of an dark, treacherous road. This imagery is successfully used to illustrate a portrait of Dickinson, or even the individual reading the piece themselves, as they’re yearning for their new life, which right now is filled with darkness and sorrow. The poem is comprised of five stanzas, each consisting of four lines. The monotonous nature of the poem is nothing gleaming or eye catching, and this is purposely done for the conspicuous fact that sometimes, precious values and things you love are vaporized. With the abandonment of something important, the world does not stop revolving around you and seemingly mold itself for you. It will continue to revolve in the same way it always has for four and half billion years, but now only seeming to be filled with darkness, difficulty and

The narrator believes you do not have to attend church to be spiritual and that common practice can be done in a peaceful place such as the orchard in her yard. The last two lines of the poem state, “So instead of getting to Heaven, at last- / I’m going, all along” (Dickinson 639). I interpreted this as the long journey to heaven has become a huge part of her life. It is not just a look into the future, but a continuous look in the present. The symbols Dickinson uses in this poem are by far the highlight of this short piece of poetry. In the first stanza, a bobolink and orchard are used to replace things that modern churches value as sacred and holy. Those natural occurrences are used by Dickinson to show her love for nature. More examples of this are shown in the second stanza. The narrator uses her own “sexton” to call her holly time instead of a brass bell to call church service. This is important to analyze as yet another natural occurrence that highly defines the authors writing style.

“I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean” (Socrates). What does it mean to be this type of poet? How can someone accomplish such success in poetry, the answer is just two words Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson spent a large portion of her life in isolation, not because she was forced to or because she was ill, Dickinson simply wanted to be alone and because of her isolation she became one of the greatest female poets of all time. Emily Dickinson set the bar high for other female poets and created some of the most renowned poems in the world. The two poems “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” and “Tell all the Truth but Tell it Slant” are drastically different poems that tell two different stories, but there are some aspects that cause them to be similar: Imagery, tone, and the statement that the two poems make.

Firstly, the repetition in the phrase “we passed” in the third stanza shows that the nature of humans is to go through different stages in life before death. Dickinson ends the third stanza with the line “We passed the Setting Sun” which is the last stage of life, death. This reveals that at the start, the first stage of life is to go through school, study and get educated. By the time humans grow up, mature, and grow old it is the setting sun; which means that life is almost over, the way the sunsets there is just a bit of sunlight left before nighttime (either rephrase the entire sentence or remove the highlighted part). Life is the same way; humans should not fear death because it is a normal stage of living. One of the main reasons Dickinson wrote this, is because she strongly believes that there is eternity and that afterlife does exist. She saw it as a glorious and exciting time because everyone would be in heaven. This view was influenced by her upbringing in a Christian home and was a Bible reader. Moreover, Dickinson refers to the grave as her house in the line, “We paused before a House that Seemed.” This exemplifies that Dickinson is very comfortable and pleased with the idea of death, leaving this life, and the afterlife. She experienced many family deaths in her lifetime, like her mother, father, and

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

One literary element she often used in her poetry is imagery which are words that are visually descriptive or figurative language. By using imagery Dickinson made readers imagine how death is like for her, she also creates tension to describe how intense that moment was. “I could not see to see (line 20)”. would be classified as imagery because it gives readers an idea about her emotions at that exact moment. Another literary element is mood. The mood is something Dickinson focuses on, and tries to make clear. Depressing would count as the mood, because she says certain distressing things about how she feels toward the subject of death. One last example of a literary element Dickinson used in her poem is simile. A simile is when you compare two things using the words “like” or “as”. The line “The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air (lines 2-3)” would count as a simile because she is comparing two alike things, death and air. She’s describing how silent she thinks death really is, maybe even peaceful.

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

“The straightforward mention of ‘reason’ suffering some kind of misfortune makes it hard not to conclude that Dickinson is specifically referring to some kind of madness. She is not using a metaphor of a storm in this poem. She is openly declaring that she felt as if something in her brain has died” (Hart, Par. 9). While Dickinson tends to use metaphors in most of her poems to describe her emotions, the only metaphorical reference in this poem is the actual funeral itself. The funeral is simply a representation of the feelings of depression taking over her brain. More symbolism can be interpreted in this poem when considering the confined life that Dickinson lived. She spent much of her time in her room, isolating herself from the world and writing poetry. As the casket is part of a funeral service, it can be interpreted that it is a resemblance of her mind and body being trapped inside a restricted place, where she cannot escape. From an article written by Eleanor Wilner, she describes how Dickinson’s secluded life contributed to her pains in life and desire to write poetry. “The struggle involved in such a total project of suppression is reflected in many of her poems, like the often quoted ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,’ which suggest a mind threatened with dissolution, turning it on itself, walling itself up as she did in her father’s house, using

Both the “Valediction Forbidding Mourning” by John Donne and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson contain age-old themes. These themes focus on inevitable feelings and events of life; love and death. Although both “Valediction Forbidding Mourning” and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” contain the two themes, they differ greatly in how they are presented and what they represent. In “Valediction Forbidding Mourning,” a husband traveling away from his wife is consoling her.

Emily dickinson was a young girl in the 1800s who liked to be at home and got homesick very easily. In the two poems that i am comparing she used death for the topic. Both of the poems i am reviewing talk strongly about death and the journey to getting there. While Emily was still a young girl she spoke strongly about death and often seemed suicidal. “Because I Could not Stop for Death’’ and “The Bustle in a House” by Emily Dickinson use mood and symbolism show her point of view on death.

This is symbolic of her looking at death as a new beginning as opposed to a sad ending. There is a feeling of disappointment as she thinks that she is going towards eternity but she just ends up viewing the “House that Seemed a Swelling of the Ground” and then centuries later, reflects upon her journey towards and eternity she didn’t witness. To Dickinson death was not something to be afraid of but to rather embrace and accept because it was inevitable, yet as in her life ends up disappointed because death leads to nothingness.

We are immediately made aware at the beginning of the poem that there is nothing out of place about this day except that they lost a family member. Dickinson was letting it be known that while the rest of the world continued as usual, they sat there in a room watching one of their suffering family members take her last breath. Death makes life different somehow. As Dickinson states, “-this to Us Made Nature Different” (lines 3,4), she tells us that when her family member died it changed them. This poem shows the raw emotion of sadness and the effect of grief overtaken her in just 6 short stanzas.