Before I Got My Eye Put Out Essay

    Figurative language plays a key role in the poem, as well. The best example is  The Morning after Death,  which sounds a lot like  mourning after death.  In fact,  mourning  could even replace  morning  and the poem would still make sense. Another example occurs in the second stanza, when Dickinson uses the words  sweeping  and  putting.   By using such cold, unfeeling words when describing matters of the heart, the author creates a numb, distant tone. She really means that after someone dies, one almost has to detach oneself from the feelings of love that once existed for the deceased.

Dickinson writes, “We grow accustomed to the Dark / When Light is put away / As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp / To witness her Goodbye” (Dickinson 1-4). The reader is given a situation where one must perceive his/her fears as an obstacle to overcome in order to adapt to the situation. Dickinson explains how the mind influences how people see things. Although the mind gets used to the “darkness”, the mind also changes its way of interpreting other problems. Emily Dickinson also writes, “The Bravest - grope a little / And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead / But as they learn to see” (Dickinson 13-16). This stanza is explaining how the bravest people perceive their fears as an obstacle to overcome in order to continue forward with their lives, like adaptation. The “bravest” are those who choose to conquer their fears instead of letting their fears consume them. Overall, the poem, “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”, elaborates on how people must adapt to change sufficiently both mentally and physically in order to overcome their

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” by Walt Whitman is the recollection of a speaker that attended an astronomer’s lecture only to be bored and leaves the room to enjoy the stars without scientific analyzation hindering their natural beauty. On the other hand, “324” by Emily Dickinson demonstrates the role of nature in the speaker’s personal connection to religion and God instead of attending Church and sermons. Although their topics seem so unlike, the poetic devices within them have both similarities and differences. Whitman’s and Dickinson’s poems bear many differences, including structure, meter, and rhyme, while remaining alike in their use of imagery to convey like attitudes towards traditionalism and nature.

In their eyes is the truth. The speaker in Dickinson’s poem promotes adaptation as the primary response to the darkness; one must, “fit our Vision to the Dark –” before acting. With courage and conviction can the speaker finally move forward “And meet the Road – erect”. Familiarization to the darkness instills a sense of fortitude with which the speaker suggests may assist until the light returns. While the speaker in Dickinson’s poem chooses to face the darkness, the speaker in Frost’s poem becomes enveloped within it, shying away from the surrounding society. Embarrassed by this nightly wandering, the speaker scarcely responds to meeting the watchman on his beat, saying, “And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.” By lowering the eyes, the speaker assumes a passive role, choosing to dwell within the night rather than facing it. This melancholy response may appear cowardly against the courageous action of the other poem, but the speaker knows that one must become acquainted with the night before moving on from this solitary lifestyle. In both poems, the reaction to the darkness is within the eyes. They must change themselves to face the darkness, or let the night change

In “ We grow accustomed to the Dark “ the poet is very upset that she lost her eyesight and wishes that she still had her eyesight but tolerates the fact that she isn’t getting her eyesight back. In the poem “ Before I got my eye put out “ the poet reacts the same to losing her eyesight , in the beginning of the poem Emily was realizing how much she enjoyed having the ability to see but in the end starts to accept that she doesn’t have her eyesight now which was very similar to the poem , “ We grow accustomed to the

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

In Emily Dickenson's "We Grow Accustomed to the Dark," and in Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night," the poets use imagery of darkness. The two poems share much in common in terms of structure, theme, imagery, and motif. Both poems are five stanzas long: brief and poignant. The central concepts of being "accustomed" to something, and being "acquainted" with something convey a sense of familiarity. However, there are core differences in the ways Dickenson and Frost craft their poems. Although both Dickenson and Frost write about darkness, they do so with different points of view, imagery, and structure.

“What is the speaker really saying about sight?” The poems, We Grow Accustomed to the Dark and Before I Got My Eye Put Out written by Emily Dickinson, mainly focus on sight. The first poem centers around this idea of being in a dark state. If someone condemns themself to darkness they might not recognize the light and good in the world. The second poem shows how the speaker is dealing with the loss of her eyesight and possibly taking it for granted. In each poem the speaker shares their own perspective on the world. Throughout the poems, Dickinson supports this idea of sight using figurative language- specifically metaphors. In these two poems you will hear a variation of tones from the speakers.

Darkness is a recurring image in literature that evokes a universal unknown, yet is often entrenched in many meanings. A master poet, Emily Dickinson employs darkness as a metaphor many times throughout her poetry. In “We grow accustomed to the dark” (#428) she talks of the “newness” that awaits when we “fit our Vision to the Dark.” As enigmatic and shrouded in mystery as the dark she explores, Dickinson's poetry seems our only door to understanding the recluse. As she wrote to her friend T.W. Higginson on April 15, 1862, “the Mind is so near itself – it cannot see, distinctly”(Letters 253). In this musing, she acquiesces to a notion that man remains locked in an internal struggle with himself. This inner

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.

In “We Grow Accustomed To The Dark” Dickinson starts off the poem with “We grow accustomed to the dark//When light is put away” right off the bat she mentions how you get comfortable with the dark or depression when the light or happiness is put away. In the second stanza of her poem, she says “We uncertain step//For newness of the night” by this she’s saying how our first few moments are uncertain but eventually a step will be taken and that’s how we learn the dark. “Then – fit our Vision to the Dark –” In this quote Dickinson says that we will fit our eyes to grow accustomed to the dark, but what she really means is that we’ll mentally grow used to that bad state of mind, our minds will adapt and once it does it’ll no longer be affected by it. She then says “And meet the Road – erect –” After adjusting to see in the dark and not in the light, walk the road with your back

Emily Dickinson , a private American poet , whose poems made a lot of metaphorical references had her poems exposed by her younger sister right after she died. As a child Dickinson lived most of her life in isolation which gave her time to write a lot of things like letters and poems like “Before I Got My Eye Put Out” and “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”. Most of her poems aren't literal. They are written in metaphorical ways to make you think. Like her poem “Before I Got My Eye Put Out” , I think this poem is referring to how she wanted to explore the world , but later realized that she would be safer inside where there was shelter and protection. In her poem “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” I think she refers to how she lost somebody that she was close to , and the problem she encountered along the way as they were gone. Both of these poems are alike in a way that they both talk about losing or giving up on something. In “Before I Got My Eye Put Put Out” the speaker reacts to the loss by giving up and not trying anymore. I think speaker in “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” would react differently and actually try to explore the world and go on an adventure.

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.

In the poem, Dickinson describes the truth as an image of light. The light which is , “[t]oo bright for an infirm [d]elight,” (3) cannot be introduced right away. When telling the truth, it is better to tell it in degrees. If someone tells it bluntly and too quickly, it would be harder for the recipient to understand. Light is also an image of truth in the sense of being able to see in the light. In contrast, one could not be able to see in the dark. Then the dark is seen as ignorance. Therefore, once exposed to the truth, everything becomes clear.

In this poem Dickinson makes the reader aware that death is an everyday event but can change the lives of the ones that are the closest to that person. When death becomes a reality the family seems to realize that the smaller things are very important, “We noticed the smaller things- Things overlooked before/ By this great light upon our Minds Italicized-as ‘twere” (lines 5,6,7,8). The things that everyday people do not slow down to see, become significant when the realization comes that there is someone that will not get to enjoy those same small things.