alalysis of emily dickinsons A certain slant of light
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Figurative language on: There's a certain slant of light
by Emily Dickinson by: Tara Pratt
This poem is one that uses language to describe a state of mind. It also uses language to mix the senses. Something that should be seen, light, is described through feeling and touch. In society, light is associated with all that is good and holy. In this poem however, the feeling is created that Dickinson is not exactly warmed by this light that she describes. The words a certain slant of light means this, that there is something different about this light. Somehow she is not quite comfortable, that it is not good or holy, but that it is a type of light that reminds her of the inevitability of death.
In the first stanza, light, is again being associated with all that is good: nature, sight, and religiously, Jesus being the light of the world. However light seems to be weak in the winter, that it is the near death of day, which is meant by the next lines words of "winter afternoons that oppresses like the heft of cathedral tunes. In the second stanza, the first line presents a oxymoron of "Heavenly hurt...