In “Let the world’s sharpness, like a clasping knife,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses motifs of knives and nature to explore the fact that the world can be cruel and to indicate that guarding oneself with peace is possible. The image of knives appears throughout the sonnet, used to compare the harshness of the world to “clasping knife” (1). Additionally, she emphasizes the peril of humans by comparing their actions to “the stab of worldlings” (8). Through her use of knife imagery, Barrett indicates that the dangers of violent people are serious and that the world is full of threat. By using imagery of nature, she examines the elements of life which should be strived for, including peace of softness. As she compares “the lilies of our lives”
