We Grow Accustomed to the Sadness
“We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” by Emily Dickinson shares a similar theme to her other poems, which is an awareness of death and the darker struggles of life. Dickinson was a reclusive poet, and throughout her life suffered a surplus of tragic events, like the deaths of many family members in one year, and the handicapping physical tolls this trauma caused on her. These themes of struggle, sadness, and death often appear in Dickinson’s work. In “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” Dickinson uses simple punctuation to highlight important tones. She uses dashes at the ends of lines in this poem, which creates the feeling of unfinished thought. She also uses capitalization on unnecessary words. Using this capitalization lets the reader
…show more content…
This surface level idea is taking Dickinson’s words in a literal sense. In stanza one Dickinson explains what happens when light is taken away:
We grow accustomed to the Dark -
When Light is put away -
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Good bye - (1-4)
In these lines she is explaining that eventually we are able to handle the darkness, when we’ve been without light for long enough. She is referencing here how our eyes grow accustomed to darkness, and are then able to see. She also gives an example of when one might need to grow accustomed to the dark. However, beyond that there is a deeper meaning. In “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” Dickinson is explaining the process of adjusting to life after a serious and tragic life event, like a trauma or depression. She’s stating that eventually we grow accustomed to the sadness, and start to be able to see light again. In stanzas four and five she writes, The Bravest - grope a little -
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead -
But as they learn to see -
Either the Darkness alters
While thinking of death, thoughts of grief, despair and worry arise. Perhaps this is a product of the darkness often times portrayed of death from contemporary literature, movies, and music. Movies such as “Schindler’s List” and music such as Neil Young’s “Tonight’s the Night” are just a few examples of entertainment that show the darkness and finality of death. These forms of medium only present the idea, as no one who wrote them actually experienced death and therefore the dark thoughts associated with it are ambiguous. In “712 (Because I Could not Stop for Death)”, poet Emily Dickinson also shows the darkness associated but she has a different view of death. She writes from the standpoint of a narrator
He also made us experience the awe and misery of the mother by describing her “trembling steps” when she went to read. the letter, her “sickly white face and dull in the head”. In addition to her state after her son’s death, she was “presently drest in. black”, “her meals untouched”, “fitfully sleeping often waking” and “sleeping”. her “deep longing.to be with her dead son”. Dickinson uses imaginative and figurative language.
The clouds remind her of things in her past that haunt and tease her. This can suggest that Dickinson has done things in her past that are not things she enjoys remembering or they are things that are not accepted by religion. Such things could be what she believes are holding her back from reaching, or achieving, “heaven”. However she also suggests that there are pleasant memories.
In Emily Dickerson’s short poem “There’s A Certain Slant of Light”, there is a lot of imagery on the idea of death. For example, when she writes “There’s a certain Slant of Light, Winter Afternoons- That oppresses, like the Heft of Cathedral Tunes-” (Dickerson). This certain use of imagery in her first paragraph, gives the reader the image of the writer’s depression.
Emily Dickinson once said, “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” Some people welcome death with open arms while others cower in fear when confronted in the arms of death. Through the use of ambiguity, metaphors, personification and paradoxes Emily Dickinson still gives readers a sense of vagueness on how she feels about dying. Emily Dickinson inventively expresses the nature of death in the poems, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)”, “I Heard a fly Buzz—When I Died—(465)“ and “Because I could not stop for Death—(712)”.
The Real Meaning Do you know how does it feel when you lost your sight? In the two poems “ We Accustomed To The Dark,” and “Before I Got My Eye Put Out” The speakers lost their sight and the feeling of sorrowful. The word darkness in the poem is a figurative language(Metaphor) in the poem. Which means in the poem is that something is imprecise or lost of direction.
This work shows a number of things about Dickinson's style of writing. Firstly, it is another example of Dickinson's style of structure, with a loose ABCB rhyme and iambic trimeter. Its theme is of hope which hints at a cry for help signifying further isolation and depression. The poem seems to have an audience of just herself. This could be a poem that she wrote in an attempt to cheer herself up in a time of sadness with an uplifting verse or just a poem written because of how she felt that day; either way it is clear that this poem was not designed for a large audience.
Dickinson uses the words “final”, “passed”, and “infinite” to illustrate death as a hault to the ones physical existence. Dickinson goes through a journey in the poem. In the beginning it seems that the speaker is in absolute denial, unable to express her feelings, but in the end she uses the word “we” in the last stanza to put emphasis on the death of the woman. Along with the use of diction, Dickinson uses imagery to illustrate her feelings in “The Last Night that She lived”.
Although the reader is now aware that there is some larger abstract meaning relating to human nature in this poem, Dickinson has not yet given enough to comprehend the
The choice of using simple words might be obscure for a logical poet as Dickinson, however she uses simple words as a technique to develop a complex sentence with a strong meaning. An example of this is her fourth sentence in which she states, “And Latitude of Home-“, where she uses a multi-definition word to intertwine with a simple word to convey a deep message. Dickinson uses a different definition of the word latitude than the obvious definition or meaning (Barnet 501). Essentially, this message means that every one’s “now is different” in the “space” that exists in home (Priddy
Bringing reference her off syllable lines, the author of Dickinson's Fascicles, says the first stanza is held together by the structured iambic pentameter, in addition to using rhyming couplets as in, ?Bore? and ?before.? Due to Dickinson?s submergence in nature, she emphasizes organic matter, with both her use and capitalization of ?Heart? and ?Nerves.? Although she draws attention to those of which are organic, she shifts to emphasize those of which are inorganic, for those of ?Ground,? ?Air,? and ?Quartz.? Analyzing the two four syllable lines, ?A Wooden way/Regardless grown? (7-8), the way can be viewed as an insincere mourning path that society attempts to set individuals toward to cope with their emotions during troubled times. Wood, even though an organic matter is used negatively here to describe an artificial reconstruction of this natural element into a coffin. Looking further at an inorganic element, quartz, it signifies the sharp pain of a loss.
Dickinson's poetry is both thought provoking and shocking. This poem communicates many things about Dickinson, such as her cynical outlook on God, and her obsession with death. It is puzzling to me why a young lady such as Emily Dickinson would be so melancholy, since she seemed to have such a good life. Perhaps she just revealed in her poetry that dark side that most people try to keep hidden.
This poem is about the author adjusting to life after being told she was blind. She talks about the struggles and how she views life different after being blind. On lines 17-18 she says “the bravest - grope a little - and sometimes hit a tree”. In this quote the author is saying the bravest people are able to adjust to the darkness but every once in awhile they will have a little mess up or set back. I think this quote is 100% true and I really like it.
The average reader cannot help but be affected by Dickinson’s style. The capitalized words draw the reader’s attention. They highlight important key words of the poem. The dashes set apart specific words and phrases, forcing the reader to slow down while reading. The dashes compel the reader to contemplate and ponder over the lines. Thus, whether or not Dickinson had a conscious purpose in her unconventional capitalization and punctuation, they have an undeniable effect on the rhythm of the poem and the perception of the reader.
Throughout Emily Dickinson’s poetry there is a reoccurring theme of death and immortality. The theme of death is further separated into two major categories including the curiosity Dickinson held of the process of dying and the feelings accompanied with it and the reaction to the death of a loved one. Two of Dickinson’s many poems that contain a theme of death include: “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” and “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”