Before I Got My Eyes Put Out

In the poem “Gretel in Darkness”, the author Louise Gluck writes based off of the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale “Hansel and Gretel”. Gluck visualizes herself as Gretel, seeing and feeling from her point of view after being faced with her terrible encounter with the witch. Gretel is distraught and feels as though no one is there for her or cares about what she is feeling. She is overwhelmed with this certain sensation of darkness. Darkness is a word filled with a strong meaning. It represents the absence of light, an important aspect used in sight. As a result darkness denies humans this sense which can make a person feel trapped, unable to see or protect oneself. The speaker is haunted by her past unable fulfill her expected “happy

She takes advantage of her passion for the darkness as a way of persuading her side of the argument, placing greater favor upon the peacefulness in darkness versus chaos in the light. Also her description of her emotions when she is surrounded by darkness suggests that our busy lives in the light have taken relaxation away from our lives; darkness helps us fall back into simpler times and serenity.

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 the beginning, there is very little light. It is almost dusk, and the speaker describes the smell as “dark” (7). Towards the middle and end there are various lights: lanterns, lamplight, fireflies, lamp (9, 11, 13, 20). This change over time depicts the storyteller’s significance to the speaker, because she brought enlightenment to his life. In this poem, light is a metaphor for knowledge, while darkness is a metaphor for ignorance. At the end, the old wise storyteller, who is the embodiment of wisdom, “was the lamplight” (20). In contrast, the two boys, who are young and ignorant, are “in one shadow” (21). The juxtaposition of light with darkness shows that the speaker and storyteller are opposites in their insight. Additionally, it is strange that she is a light before them, yet they are still shadowed. What is blocking the light from them? This metaphor illustrates that it takes time for people to become sage like their elders. As the speaker says, adulthood is “childhood’s aftermath,” which means that the knowledge people gain in childhood will lead them to be wise adults such as the storyteller

In Emily Dickenson’s “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” distinct views of hesitation in life are explained, and are manifested with each authors different point of views, structure, sound, imagery, and metaphors.

The narrator of the poem begins with stating that “some kind of shadow was behind her/ she ran towards nowhere/ dark, empty, cold, stuck.” The poem depicts the

The poem “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark “ to me is about us ,humans , overcoming setbacks.There is always going to be people or things that will try to get in the way of us being successful . The negative energy which the poet symbolized with “ darkness” will try to stop your success . Success is symbolized with “ light “ or “eyesight” which will overcome the darkness in this poem . Us becoming accustomed and or use to the darkness is us becoming use to the negative energy that tries to stop us from becoming great at our talent or whatever activity you are pursuing . In Emily Dickinson poem “ We grow accustomed to the Dark” ,she talks about how we get use to the darkness meaning we get use the people that want you to fail or the major setbacks that are coincidentally thrown in your direction while we are working our way to the stop.

In this quote, the narrator is showing that with the light comes knowledge of the world for the child. The light is bleak and not always encouraging. When the child exposes himself to the world he loses part of his innocence and childhood. Therefore, the child may wish to remain in the darkness. The darkness in this specific excerpt is personified as a slow and gentle relief. The narrator attempts to convey the concept that darkness, which is reality, means nothing without light to illuminate it because the light makes one aware of the dark, and therefore comprehend reality.

Throughout many novels different characters are sent to a new place to explore and find new things in life. An excellent example would be how the characters in the novel Poisonwood Bible explore a new lifestyle in the Congo. While they are there they have to learn how to adapt to a new life, and they try and teach the Congolese people how to worship the God, Jesus Christ. Even though the Congolese people may believe in different Gods, the Price family, especially Nathan feels that it is their duty to teach them different ways. Thus the poem We Grow Accustomed To The Dark by Emily Dickinson, is similar because it is talking about how people become accustomed to a different lifestyle just like the Price family did in the Poisonwood Bible. In

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.

The interplay of dark and light motifs underlies the narrator’s most recent hardship. On his way home on the subway, the narrator comes across his brother’s name in a newspaper and “stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness which roared outside” (Baldwin). Riding in the light of the subway car, the author makes the non-suspecting narrator subject to suffering, unguarded by the protective cloak of the outside darkness. Made vulnerable by the exposed light and people surrounding him, the narrator is hit harder by the unexpected news than if he had read it in the darkness of his private room. Under the “swinging lights,” the narrator is not prepared to cope with the troubling news. This emphasizes the importance of light as a symbol for one’s need of camouflage to properly cope with tragedy.

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

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.

The poem, "She Walks in Beauty," plays with the opposing forces dark and light. Immediately the poem begins by the speaker saying that "the best of dark and bright meet" in the woman's eyes. Additionally, the words "shade" and "ray" in the first line of the second stanza make the reader think of dark and bright. Further into that stanza, once again, the opposites are combined when her "every raven tress...softly lightens o'er her face." "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" also plays with the contrast of both dark and light. The poem takes place

In the poem “Before I got my eye put out” the speaker loses a sense of taking things for granted. When the speaker realizes this change, she is overwhelmed with the way she saw things. In the poem “Before I got my eye put out” there is a line that states “ As much of noon as I can take”. This line represents and further explains how the speakers sight is affected by the change that she goes through. By her saying “as much as I can take” that shows the reader that now there is a limit to the amount of “noon” the speaker can see. The speaker is shocked by this new change because she also says in the poem “the news would strike me dead”. The speaker basically says that they were shocked by saying it struck her dead.