Emily Dickinson's 'A Certain Slant of Light' Analysis Essay

As I Lay Dying and Little Miss Sunshine are two stories about a family’s journey and the setback they face along the way. The type of journey the families endure follows the path of rising and then falling that occur throughout their time together. Little Miss Sunshine is an effective contemporary version of the archetypal journey when compared to As I Lay Dying because of the similar archetypal events, characters and symbolism.

Approaching Emily Dickinson’s poetry as one large body of work can be an intimidating and overwhelming task. There are obvious themes and images that recur throughout, but with such variation that seeking out any sense of intention or order can feel impossible. When the poems are viewed in the groupings Dickinson gave many of them, however, possible structures are easier to find. In Fascicle 17, for instance, Dickinson embarks upon a journey toward confidence in her own little world. She begins the fascicle writing about her fear of the natural universe, but invokes the unknowable and religious as a means of overcoming that fear throughout her life and ends with a contextualization of herself within

Dickinson's poem focuses on the speaker's relationship with death as being more complex than some might feel inclined to imagine one's connection with it. It appears that the poet wants her readers to acknowledge that death is imminent and that it is

The Great Recession lasted from December of 2007 until June of 2009, making it the longest recession since World War II. During this time, gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, unemployment, and interest rates were all greatly affected. The previously mentioned metrics are used to compare today’s economy to the economy during the Great Recession to see how the United States has rebounded since 2009. Monetary and fiscal policies were also implemented to combat the recession, and their effects determine whether or not the policies have a lasting effect in continuing to help the U.S. economy rebound.

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

In “Tell All the Truth but Tell It Slant” Emily Dickinson talks about the truth and how commonly it is to avoid the truth. We as humans at times never tell the whole truth and sometimes we use the phrase “the truth hurts” loosely to justify the actual I told you so. Most of us would rather tell a lie, before we tell the truth because it’s less stress and less commotion. Emily Dickinson uses the term “truth” to illustrate the manipulation of lies through religion and theoretical viewpoints.

When people think of Emily Dickinson, they think of a white dressed, ghostly woman hidden in the corridors of home, writing poem after poem. They do not think of the actual person Emily was. Emily Dickinson grew up in a rich, social, scholarly environment. She could have chosen many paths that would have led her to a completely different life, but because of circumstances, the social, high energy girl with a sense of humor became isolated by her own choice. Though Emily Dickinson’s depression is romanticized, sickness, social life, and death led her to seclusion and deep poems.

Emily Dickinson’s reclusive life was arguably a result of her proposed bi-polar disorder. This life and disorder unduly influenced the themes of her poetry. She chose not to associate herself with society and volumes of her poems, published posthumously, examine this idea as well as the themes of nature and death. The clearest examples of these themes are presented in the following analysis of just of few of her

     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.

Dickinson uses elements of nature to lay a harsh but true insight to our own inevitable deaths. That is, God has a plan and the world will continue to spin. The first stanza of the poem is clearly a snapshot of the fall months, this is extremely effective as we see the theme of death all around us annually. As the trees shed their leaves and the flowers wither away we can see beings die. Winter comes leaving a trail of destruction in it’s path, while in most places of the world the sun continues to rise right on schedule. This would have been even more noticeable in the 1800’s when Dickinson wrote the poem, as many would freeze and go hungry during the winter. Slowly as the weather gets warmer we start to see the ice and snow, that has just killed many plants, bugs, animals and so on, melt away. Even though the world is filled with these subtle hints at death “The Sun proceeds unmoved” (Dickinson, 6) meaning the world will go on, and Sun will again rise tomorrow. The indirect comparison between nature and death assists to provide a visual to this view.

Emily Dickinson lost her father on June 16, 1874 (Sewall 69). The sudden loss of her father stunned her and she wrote in a letter that she was “wondering where he is. Without any body, I keep thinking. What kind can that be” (Letter, 471). When Dickinson’s mother passed away in November of 1882, Dickinson also wrote in a letter about her “wonder at her fate” and she was “seeking what it means” (Letter, 815). The “wonder” in both letters shows that Emily Dickinson is a person who looks inward for the mystery of death. Many of her poems convey her preoccupation with death, concern with immortality and doubts about fulfillment beyond the grave. I will analyze “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” (591) and “Because I could not stop for Death” (479), both of which deal with the death and eternity. These two poems reflect the conflicting attitudes of Emily Dickinson towards afterlife.

Have you ever wondered what it Feels like for someone that lived with their sight then became blind? Well Emily Dickinson did that in two of her poems. She made you imagine that you were the person that got your eye poked out and start to get used to living in the dark. These poems are called “We grow accustomed to the dark” and “Before I got my eye poked out.” Emily Dickinson lost her eye sight late in her life but wrote these two poems about living your life in the dark. These poems tells you that you will have to deal with problems living in the dark.

The first thing that stands out is the word stillness. When I first read through this poem imagine that this was used to portray death as very calm or subtle. After reviewing the poem multiple times, Dickinson uses stillness to shows that the speaker is actually waiting for something more to happen to him/her. This can be shown in the last two lines when Dickinson says, “Was like the Stillness of the Air—Between the Heaves of Storms” (974). Dickinson was trying to state that the calm between two storms is short lived because people are already anticipating the next storm.

In Emily Dickinson’s lyrical poem “There’s a certain slant of light” she describes a revelation that is experienced on cold “winter afternoons.” Further she goes to say that this revelation of self “oppresses, like the Heft of Cathedral Tunes” and causes “Heavenly Hurt”, yet does not scare for it is neither exterior nor permanent. This only leaves it to be an internal feeling, and according to Dickinson that is where all the “Meanings” lie. There’s no way for this feeling to be explained, all that is known is that it is the “Seal Despair”, and an “imperial affliction”. These descriptions have a rather powerful connotation in showing the oppressive nature of his sentiment. There is an official mark of despair and an imperial affliction

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.