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The Last Night That She Lived Diction

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“The Last Night That She Lived” Commentary Death has a drastic and harrowing effect on a person. Often, a person’s senses will be enhanced and a deep sense of grief will come about. Emily Dickinson applies structure, diction, and figurative language in the poem “The Last Night That She Lived” to emphasize the effect death can have on another person. Dickinson incorporates structure to portray the narrator’s raw emotions towards the woman’s death. Enjambment displays that the speaker is pausing to reflect upon what has just happened. This shows the reader that the poem is to be taken seriously. Typography across the poem accentuates the complexity of what the speaker and the people amongst her are feeling. The speaker coldy remarks “The last Night that She lived / It was a Common Night / Except the Dying” (1-3) as if the death of the woman was nothing but an afterthought. The random capitalization of words that are not proper highlights the speaker’s bitterness. Polysyndeton is inserted in lines 25-27 to implement a gory image in the reader’s mind of how the woman is buried. Structure plays an …show more content…

The usage of the archaic word “‘twere” (8) helps illustrate an image of the past. The alliteration in the line “We waited while She passed-” (17) is applied to help keep the somber rhythm of the poem. Alliteration is included again in line 23 to depict an image the of woman dying. “Struggled scarce” (23) simply rolls of the tongue in a blunt way, just like how someone dies. Throughout “The Last Night She Lived”, the word ‘we’ is repetitively exercised throughout the poem, signifying the community’s sadness and sudden shift in perspective. The speaker never once says ‘I’. The figurative language of the poem symbolizes how death never affects just one person and is a tragedy humans have been experiencing

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(Lines 13-14). This reveals the fear the writer has for her partner’s possible wavering love in contrast to his permanent tattoos that represent the idea of permanence. Additionally, the rhyme style and word use help to interpret the meaning of the poem’s formal verse. Furthermore, the poem uses an element called enjambment, to draw the attention of its readers to certain details. Enjambment is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as, “the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.”

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851 Words | 4 Pages

These three poetic elements, contrasting words, imagry, and repitition, are utilized to showcase the vast, contrasting ways death can be percieved by those who encounter it. As well as, the way the author and narrator of this poem views this particular concept, that being their bregrudged acceptance of it. Millay uses contrasting words to emphasize the narrator’s dislike for death. Imagry was used to acknowledge the “beauty” of death, that people say as a way to ease the pain. This acknowledgement is needed for when the author uses repetition to contrast these statements.

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This poem is a great poem. The author tries to tell us that people can live their lives in many different ways but death is absolute and inevitable no matter what one does or where one goes. Even if it goes unnoticed, it cannot be

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Feeling the grief, she goes into her room and looks through the window, soaking in every bit of the world she sees. Mrs. Mallard begins to just sob, letting reality settle, shifting to depression. The view of herself has altered, as she looks at the reflection before her, the author states, “It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought” (Paragraph 8). She begins to feel something taking over her, sort of a joy-like feeling, but then her perception changes again, imagining her husband, dead in his casket, so gray and lifeless. Quickly that moment passed, causing her to realize that all the years ahead were hers.

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Obviously the speaker of the poem has lost someone just as Gatsby did in The Great Gatsby. While the pieces have different plots and different formats, the story of loss is common and relatable. The torment felt by the speaker parallels Fitzgerald’s characters who experience similar feelings of nostalgia and grief after they too have been

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This helps the author establish a dark and desperate setting to the story, and at the same time creating a pleading yet motivating request for those near death making a powerful statement. Towards the end of the poem when the author begins to introduce who he is talking to a mixture of sadness and yet a learning moment start to arise as the character asks his father, to what it seems for his father’s power and fearlessness he possess, coming across as asking for direction on how to live his own life. “Bless, me now with your fierce tears, I

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Throughout the poem, the speaker addresses his father directly, urging him to resist death and to keep fighting, even as his physical and mental faculties begin to deteriorate. The poem is suffused with a sense of grief and loss, as the speaker grapples with the imminent death of his father and the realization that he must soon say goodbye. Yet, at the same time, there is a deep sense of love and respect that underlies the poem's message. The speaker is imploring his father not to give up because he wants him to live, to continue to be a presence in his life, and to continue to fight for the things that matter. Moreover, the poem emphasizes the importance of old age and the wisdom that comes with it, suggesting that even in the face of death, the elderly still have much to offer and should be respected and revered.

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The poet does so because the main theme of this poem is the siren gets too bored to stay on the island, and she is desperately looking for help to release herself. Basically, enjambment works by removing some punctuation at the end of the lines, and multiple lines can be linked together. As punctuation marks like comas are removed, it is easier to increase the suspense for readers to jump into next recurring scene with an abrupt ending of line; thus, creating hasty tone of the scenario. In this poem, the poet extensively uses enjambment with other effects to amplify the theme. For example, the arrangement of “I don’t enjoy it here squatting on this island” and “I don’t enjoy singing this trio” (Atwood, 14-17).

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People tend to expect to continue living from day to day, not knowing exactly when we are going to go, but knowing it’s coming sooner or later. Because of the fact that we are all going to die eventually many authors have written about the theme of death, more specifically the theme of dying. In this particular poem we are presented with the theme that life is short and because of that we are all destined to die. Plainly put this poem is about a kid who dies very young and because of this it’s extremely sad for everyone in the town he lives in. The fact that even people who are so young can expire before the rest of us is not only saddening, but also eye opening.

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The tone of a poem can be best described through emphasizing on certain emotions or feelings through words and phrases. “Home Burial" represents Robert Frost era beginning early in the twentieth century. " Home Burial" is about a married couple who has lost a child, a situation far more common, perhaps, than any of us would highly relate to. Robert Frost paints a picture for us in two different ways of grieving the death of an infant through the mother and father.

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When first reading this poem I got lost multiple times. I couldn’t keep my focus while reading it because lines didn’t make sense to me and there were words I didn’t know the definition to. After looking up definitions and re-reading the poem, I started to understand it and interpret what the poem meant. In lines 3-5 that say, “thus much let me avow- you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream” the poem became confusing to me. I now know that the poem is about a person passing and how life is almost unreal and insubstantial when you can’t hold on to someone who has passed.

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An example of an enjambment from the text is, “There is/ no way to know how easy this/ white skin makes my life, this / life…” (Olds 26-29). The enjambments, although simple, give the poem a much more powerful meaning, by showing the harshness of the reality for blacks during this time period. They seem to reflect the thoughts and emotions of the poem and the author. It shows that she feels somewhat guilty, because of what she has in life because of her skin color, as opposed to what the boy has because of his skin color.

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1040 Words | 5 Pages

This poem has an apparent rhyme scheme. The last word in each line rhymes with the last word in the line directly under it. This lets the reader almost sing through the poem. There is a very nonchalant tone and feel to the poem. The lack of detail in the poem lets the readers imagination create the situation in which the person dies.

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In Dickinson’s poem, death is not as terrifying as it is believed to be by most people. She sees death as a beautiful thing, a new chapter, rather than the last chapter. In contrast, Donne personifies death as a bully who turns out not to be so tough. Death is often thought of as dark and frightening, but Dickinson describes death as a journey, and not just a single event that concludes a life.

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Personification is a signature device used in the poem, and this can be seen from the capitalized ‘Death’ and the capitalized ‘Immortality’. Death is personified as a civil suitor in the poem, and the poet’s vision on death and her diction with the title are comprehensible since death is inevitable, and will always be waiting for the victim. Symbolism is also used in the poem. We passed the school, where children stove at recess - in the ring – we passed the fields of gazing grain – we passed the setting sun.’ This stanza neatly symbolizes the three main stages of life: childhood, adulthood, and age.

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