Literary Elements In Emily Dickinson's Poems

“Good evening, everyone. We are gathered here today to learn about one of the most iconic, powerful and influential figures in the English history, Emily Dickinson. Dickinson was unique in the way she portrayed certain experiences; she largely influenced poets from today’s society, making her all the more remarkable.
Today, we will be looking over two of her poems, entitled “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and “If you were coming in the fall”. These poems have a lot of hidden meanings to them, and she uses enriching literary elements and devices such as rhymes, metaphors and symbols and similes.
In the poem “We grow accustomed to the Dark”, we see in the very first line, which is the same as the title, that Emily is in fact not referring to

She emphasizes on the words “Neighbor”, “Lamp” and “Goodbye” by capitalizing the letters at the beginning. Throughout the entire poem, Dickinson is not referring to obscurity; she is rather using figurative language, precisely a metaphor, using “darkness” to express “something that we are not prepared for, all throughout the poem. As she is walking towards the darkness, feelings of doubt, uncertainty and maybe even fear start hitting her; this darkness is all so new to her, and she needs time to make sense of everything that is going on around her. Now, for metaphors; if the dark symbolizes something we are not prepared for, then perhaps the road or the path that she is taking towards the darkness portrays our future. Progressively, Dickinson seems to accommodating to the darkness, seeing more clearly as she walks on. Once she has adjusted to the unexplored territory, she feels more and more confident about her journey. Here, Dickinson again emphasizes on words such as “Vision”, “Dark” and “Road” by capitalizing the first letter of each word. Moving onto figurative language, the poet reaches a point in her journey were she realizes that the path that

In the poem, she talks about love and how she and her significant other split up. In the poem, Dickinson talks about her craving to be with her partner again. She is so desperately in love that she makes it a point that she is willing to wait forever, just as long as her partner comes back to her. When she says “I’d brush the summer by…As Housewives do, a Fly”, Dickinson uses similes to show that she does not care about the fact that her loved one left, just like a Housewife does not care to brush a fly away. She also uses a simile when she says “If certain, when this life was out-…I’d toss it yonder, like a Rind”, meaning that she is ready to do “toss” her unimportant body, to end her life, just so she could be reunited with her loved one in the Skies. Another literary device that she uses is repetition where she says “If…If…If…If…”, proving her uncertainty of the situation and her own actions, as well as her fear of what the future holds. Emily uses imagery at one point when she says “I’d brush the summer by…As Housewives do, a Fly” and “I’d count them on my Hand, Subtracting, till my fingers dropped”, to help the readers understand the message that she is trying to get across, while using strong, vivid and visual language. In order to show us just how far her loved one is, Emily uses allusion when she says “Into Van Dieman’s Land”, this island being far