Stop All The Clocks, Cut Off The Telephone

Everyone has or will experience a loss. The means of coping with that loss cannot be defined as one exact way. Everybody has different ways of coping. W.H Auden uses a more external or public way of dealing with his trauma. Emily Dickinson has a more internal way of dealing with her emotions. Reading these two poems “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,” and “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” you can see perfect examples of two people who are going through a similar experience but displaying their emotions slightly differently while at the end feeling the same emotions.
W. H. Auden’s poem, “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,” and Emily Dickinson’s poem, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” show deep feelings

The speaker displays great form of visual imagery while using natural objects. The speaker wants everything quiet while he saviors this moment. Through his descriptions, you can see the scene so clearly. He wants the ticking of the clock to stop and the telephone to not ring aloud. The speaker wants the dogs silenced as well. “…and with muffled drum bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.,” (line 3-4) helps you visualize the dramatics and importance of this moment to the speaker. This line also is the use of auditory imagery. The speaker wants messages in the sky, doves to display this moment and police officers as well. He knows that this moment is only extra important to himself but displays how big he wants to be to everyone. In the third stanza, he begins to reminisce about the importance of his lover who has passed. The speaker uses metaphors to display how much the lover meant to him beautifully. He calls his lover, “My morning week, and my Sunday rest,” (line 10) as well as many other things. By the fourth stanza, the speaker becomes very bitter. He wants to rid everything bright, or that may have used to make him smile. He wants the world to see the emptiness he feels.
Visual and Auditory Imagery is just as it sounds. Visual imagery is the primary form of imagery used in “Stop all the clocks, cut off the Telephone.”

In the first stanza explains the feelings occurred after a traumatic event. The pain spoken of in this poem is all internal in comparison with Auden’s poem where he is expressing how he wants to deal with the pain externally. Dickinson appears to be numb and as if the pain is causing much confusion, “And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?,” hence the confusion of the time. The poem shows the distance from real emotions that the speaker is facing. The dashed lines may represent the speaker unable to go on. Throughout the poem, you get a sense of shock and confusion. The speaker is displaying the pain striking them, stopping them in their tracks. “As a freezing person, recollect the Snow- First – Chill- then Stupor – then the letting go –“(Line 12-13, Dickinson) The form of imagery Dickinson uses is a little more difficult than the rest. The imagery in “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” is considered organic imagery. VanBuren describes organic imagery as “language to approximate any internal sensation, such as fear, hunger, or thirst.” In Dickinson’s poem, through the language, you can feel her