We Grow Accustomed to the Dark…

Darkness is a fall out image in literature that evokes a universal unheard-of, yet is often entrenched in numerous meanings. A master poet, Emily Dickinson employs vestige as a metaphor umpteen times by means ofout 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 questionable and shrouded in secret as the dark she explores, Dickinsons poetry seems our only door to understanding the recl hold. As she wrote to her friend T. W. Higginson on April 15, 1862, the creative thinker is so near itself it scum bag non see, distinctly(Letters 253).In this musing, she acquiesces to a nonion that man remains locked in an internal struggle with himself. This inner contravene is brought to light through a metaphorical night that pervades many of her songs. Evidenced by the sheer breadth of her poetry she penned throughout her lifespan, it is clear Dickinson indulged and withdrew often into the inner real m of her own mind. The sliminess is an interesting metaphor because it awards a dichotomy betwixt an internal and external. Poem 428 illustrates both as the phantasm acts as a barrier against understanding, while at the same time a limitless changeover to potential fellowship.As a poet, Dickinson meticulously fashions her poems. Each word, for each one capitalization, each rhyme scheme the fool is a device c atomic number 18fully calculated and chosen. The dash is rarely reflected on since Dickinson tends to practice the punctuation in each poem. However, in poem 428, the formatting is essential to the meaning. What do the dashes mean? The punctuation dash has the federal agency to right away interrupt the flow of a sentence. Dashes indicate pauses ends places to wait sometimes nonhingness. Nothingness is what the injustice contains. Isnt nonhingness an unknown?As we read the poem we pause at every turn, commanded to do so by the dash declaratory of inner co ntravene. Our minds subconsciously repeat this action after ever pause every dash. The talking to it is apply on highlight the dark. The dash is used after margins directly referencing darkness itself and its incarnations (line 6s night, line 10s Evenings, line 11s Moon, line 19s Midnight) half of the time. In other lines, darkness is not directly referenced, yet evoked through certain associate terms. The power of darkness to hinder understanding and arbitrarily change are used fter such words (line 2s away, line 4s bye, line 11s sign, and line 17s alters).The darkness also could represent an inner conflict, such as the turmoil within (line 12) is exclusively mental. The line is indicative of the inner search for truth. The superfluous use of dashes in this specific line emphasizes the feeling of hopelessness that plagues the search. This trend continues in line 13 as the subject, the Bravest, still always have darkness that lies ahead which they must meet -erect- (line 8) and overcome. After doing this, the brave can see (line 16) and reach the deeper enlightenment theyve sought.What about the words that lack a dash? These lines emphasize the sworn enemy of darkness- the light. To begin, line 3s lamp illuminates the darkness. Light is used often as a metaphor to channelise knowledge that lies ahead or paths to understanding. Therefore, line 5s step and line 20s straight lack a dash since they show a direction. In darkness, there exists nothingness and no place to tread. In line 14, tree is indicative of lights other meaning to shed light on something. A realization of a truth whitethorn be revealed in light. This connection causes light to be intrinsically linked to wisdom.Thus, in a poem so immersed in emotional darkness, wisdom would void it. As cold as line 18s spot is concerned, no dash is present because without light a visual cannot be seen and depart remain in (a physical and mental) darkness. In these lines without a dash, darkness is not a cting as a barrier. In this poem, a rhyme scheme doesnt seem to exist at first. Few of the lines rhyme, except for lines 14 and 16 and lines 18 and 19. However, the poem has fluidity scorn its apparent scarcity of rhyme. After examining the alteration of syllables in each line, a pattern is revealed in this poem concerning darkness.The first nine lines alternate between 8 and 6 syllables. These lines are concerned, as any narrative is, with exposition. These lines mountain up darkness as an internal conflict to come. The conflict intensifies in lines 10 and 11 as we are bombarded by an explosion of 8 syllables in each line. These lines present the conflict within ones own mind at its most desperate. After this climax, the syllables in the become nine lines resolve the conflict presented. In these lines, Dickinson presents us with an archetypal figure that is brass sectiond with a conflict the bravest hero.These lines present the resolution in lines that alternate between 6 and 7 syllables. Just as the syllables decrease, the fall action presents us with a final insight. This insight discusses how darkness is an insurmountable entity that, interchangeable the hero, we must face to continue straight through Life (line 20). The next seemingly arbitrary decision is Dickinsons capitalization. The capitalization at the beginning of the sentence must be capitalized therefore, well focus on the capitalizations that lie within each sentence. In this poem, each of these words is a noun.Past this simple reading, what may we deduce from these capitalizations? Each stanza presents a different set of capitalized objects which lend themselves to the interpretation that darkness is a barrier. It is no mere coincidence, that standardised the darkness they reference, these objects are not easily read. The poem presents itself as a narrative, but when you want to seek a connection between these capitalized objects, you feel youve hit a wall an impasse. In poem 554, Dicki nson presents us with another frustrating financial statement when she asserts I had not minded Walls .In a similar way, this poem Dickinson is satisfied with the elusiveness that the darkness presents. She takes delight in contradiction and abstraction. In a letter sent to T. W Higginson on June 8, 1862, Dickinson states that she has no tribunal (255). Dickinson, like her poetry, is a paradox. In her house she was Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, yet in her poetry and letters takes on the form of the enigmatic Your Scholar or E. Dickinson (Letters 263-278). However, without seeming as well as presumptuous with a direct correlation to the poet, these objects remain impenetrable.The objects could be interpreted as external entities, yet each when internalized represents a concept inaccessible. For example, in poem 428, we feel the Moon and Star, objects present in darkness of the sky, not characterized in the usual way we symbolically represent them. The Moon doesnt represent an omen sign and the Star is found within reach instead of far away. This is further evidenced when the Bravest in relation to the Tree do not act how we expect. We expect figures personify courage to undergo immense not little obstacles and to always not sometimes encounter them (as represent by the tree).But what of all the poems that argue the opposite, that the darkness represents a potential limitless portent to freedom? indeed poem 428s metaphorical darkness could be interpreted as a veil that covers a deeper enigmatical truth. In fact, darkness takes on a myriad of manifestations, such as shadow, in Dickinsons poetry. In hope is that long shadow on the Lawn (487), Dickinson uses a long shadow in apposition with a presentiment. A presentiment is an intuition about the future (usually of something evil). In this instance, a limiting of light presents us with an indicator to further wisdom.In another poem, In Ebon box, when years have flown (180), the darkness that covers t he box is manifested as velvet dust / Summers have sprinkled there A mere wiping away is all it takes to unlock whats unfathomable inside. In these poems, darkness is never directly referenced only alluded to. However, in Dickinsons poetry, darkness need not solely be alluded to. In Through the dark sod as education (559), the deeper theme of darkness explicitly leads to potential knowledge. In poem 559, the Lily is an entity known to thrive in the light of day (and maybe even Dickinson herself).Then, why is the image of the Dark Sod brought in? Dickinson certainly could have chosen to utilize night, a period that flowers encounter every night. However, through this uncommon embodiment of lawn, Dickinson exposes darkness as an present force. Even for a Lily, darkness is a commonplace occurrence. However, here a head on meeting with an omnipresent force doesnt block the pursuer from realizing a deeper meaning. Thus, the Lily needs the darkness for redemption. Poem 559 presents darkness as a metaphor we shouldnt have trepidation or fear for.In the second stanza, Dickinson advances her exploration of darkness. In the meadow, the Lily acknowledges the darkness that it faced by reflecting on its recent Mold-life. The Mold in the garden-variety setting of the poem has the evil power to devour and delineates passing of time. However, to ignore the first part of the hyphenated expression, the word Mold, would be to ignore the power of darkness influence. Mold itself could refer back to the process of forming (both physical creation and the mental process undergone throughout life by the mind).In this poem, the Lily undergoes a transformative process that leaves it forever in Extasy. Ecstasy here is an interesting consequence when we shoot Dickinsons own mentations on the matter. On their first meeting, Dickinson said to T. W. Higginson, I find ecstasy in life-time the mere sense of living is joy itself (Letters 264). (Therefore, if we conclude that ecstasy i s an effect of darkness, then we could deduce that Dickinson believed it merry element since life is comprised of birth and death. ) The flower in the poem is mutated and enhanced through the period of darkness it experiences.This poem could be seen as a musing on the human condition that befalls us all. A matter relatable and universally understood that life is a never-ending struggle which we all engage. The individual will emerge from the hardships, like Dark Sod, once they come to the realization that light cannot exist without its antithesis, darkness. Just as light cannot exist without its opposite, a discourse on metaphorical darkness in Emily Dickinsons poetry would not be complete without an inclusion of metaphorical light.However, light is such a commonly used word, that expressions expound its revelatory nature have become cliches. To go beyond these two analyses, we must reveal the cataclysmic nature underlying light. In Theres a certain slant of light (320), Dickinso n explicates light in a novel way. In this poem, the setting is a Winter Afternoon. From the very first line, the poet maintains a bias against the light. In the season of winter, it is expected for light to rarely appear. As a New England resident, Emily Dickinson knew this fact well. This poem, unlike many of Dickinsons poetry, does not extol nature or light.Unlike its usual connotation, Dickinson presents a light that contradicts what we expect and that instead exhibits a complicated nature. Interestingly enough, the light at work in this poem is found to be oppressive, despite nature superseding its position. Why then is light oppressive? The answer to this query is arrived at if we carefully hunt Dickinsons diction choice. In this poem, we can argue that change is epitomized by the certain Slant of light as a turning point for transformation. This slant of light is oppressive, but this is no simple, purely negative oppression.Rather, like darkness, it is both hard and worthwh ile. The diction is heightened in the third stanza, when the poem 320s speaker states how light cannot school a lesson. An experience of painful transition is deemed more important. This experience is characterized by the stress placed on the word Any. The word both ends the physically written line and limits the expounded experience. Further explored, the turmoil disclosed is revealed not as a collective one by the diction choice an imperial affliction. It is almost as if a privileged group can only experience the transformation.In one word, Dickinson refashions light from universal parable of revelation to a symbol of an exclusive human experience. However, taking light metaphorically where we never thought it could, Dickinson shows how easily transmuted these externals light and dark (which weve internalized and thought we knew) are. In Dickinsons first letter to T. W. Higginson on April 16, 1862, she asked him, Are you too deeply occupied to say if my rhythm is alive? (25 3) The irony lies in the fact that Dickinsons verse is so alive that Emily Dickinson continues to rewrite the traditional modes of literature convention past her own lifetime.