Analysis Of Success Is Counted Sweetest By Emily Dickinson

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From 1861 to 1865 the United States faced a time of great turmoil among the North and the South in various battles that came to be known as the American Civil War. During this time, the South wanted to secede from the Union so that they could keep slavery, the North however wanted to abolish slavery and keep the North and the South united. The controversy from this period sparked some of the greatest speeches, plays, books, and poems of all time, all powerful and heartfelt in their own way. Included in the literary works born from the Civil War are Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address as well as Emily Dickinson’s poem, Success Is Counted Sweetest. Even though Lincoln’s speech is considered rhetoric while Dickinson’s is categorized …show more content…

Throughout her poem, Dickinson argues that people are more likely to appreciate success and the value it holds if they tend to fail or be non-successful. Her argument is seen immediately as she starts of her poem by saying “Success is counted sweetest/ By those who ne’er succeeded.” If you’ve never succeeded before, you long for it and you build it up in your mind to be something great. On the other hand if you have been successful, you may already be used to it and it may not be a big deal to you any longer. Dickinson also supports her point when she writes, “As he, defeated, dying,/ On whose forbidden ear/ The distant strains of triumph/ Break, agonized and clear!” This stanza from her poem shows a scenario where a soldier is left to die on the battlefield so he is the unsuccessful party, and he is forced to hear his enemy’s triumphant cries of victory as he dies. So as he’s dying, he gets to hear what and long for a victory that he’ll never have the chance to experience again, and those who are celebrating probably don’t value their victory as much as they should because they can’t comprehend for themselves what the dying soldier is

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