Effective Use Of Metaphors In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Improved Essays
Emily Dickinson’s poems are rich with metaphors, specifically “Where ships of purple gently toss.” She conveys vivid imagery and uses detailed expression throughout. Through description, “Where ships of purple gently toss”, illustrates a beautiful sunset.
Metaphors in the poem “Where ships of purple gently toss”, help to establish the meaning of a sunset. The author uses a metaphors containing key words that give indications to this poems allegorical meaning. The words “ships”, “sailors”, “seas”, and “wharf” are primary examples. Ships refer to the clouds slowly drifting away in the sky, moving in the sky like the ships in the ocean. The wharf refers to the earth and everything around, as it is still once the sun sets. It ends night like it

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In lines 299-304 Virgil comments on the time of year where the farmers are finally able to enjoy the rewards of their hard work. Virgil uses personification when he refers to winter since it is winter that brings times of restfulness and idleness, unties cares from the farmers, and invites festivities to the otherwise dull agricultural life. This personification it is obviously seen since hiems is in the nominative case in lines 299 and 302 and it is the main subject throughout these lines. It is also interesting to note that when the agricolae are the subject they have a passive and an active verb, while hiems appears with only active verbs (invitat and resolvit). Another instance where Virgil’s use of personification appears in line 302 when the adjective genialis is used to describe winter.…

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Discovery leads to unique renewed perceptions and new understandings, within Jane Harrison’s ‘ Rainbow’s End’ and Gwen Harwood’s ‘ Father and Child’. Harrison and Harwood present Gladys and Dolly from Rainbow’s End and the child and father from Father & Child as characters who convey the aspects of discovery of with the use of both symbolism and other language techniques. Both texts reflect on a feminine and a father and child context using the protagonists. In Rainbow’s…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although there is still some struggle (“the wind snapping and lashing” (625)), the sailboat enters the “haven of the breakwater” (625). This metaphor, although trite, expresses the change in the environment. The last stanza filled with visual images like “gliding elegantly” (265), “a film of water” (as opposed to first stanza’s “wrinkled hide of water”), “obedient legend” suggesting peace and…

    • 426 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The author employs personification in order to give a sense of the character struggling in her haste. Furthemore, the author utilizes imagery in her poem. One lines 46 through 47 it says,”... The interior of the planes was filled with a mist of golden dolphin light…”…

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The poem begins with a direct speech from the speaker establishing one specific day in time where one has an epiphany of what one’s purpose in life is. In the three next lines, a symbol is introduced as the “voices”. The “voices” represent other people, mainly those who are part of one’s life but are not beneficial to one’s personal growth. These three lines reveal the true intentions of those voices as they keep saying the wrong things and shifting one’s mind in a different direction. The next four lines utilizes metaphors to emphasize one’s perseverance.…

    • 217 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Circle of Life Edward Young, an English poet, had once said. “There is something about poetry beyond prose logic, there is mystery in it, not to be explained but admired.” Poems may use few words, but they can invest the reader as if they’d have read a novel instead of a few stanzas. This is because of an author’s use of the poetic craft to form their vision. Ted Kooser’s poem entitled Mother shows great examples of intense imagery, symbolism, and irony to arouse the emotions of anger and hope.…

    • 691 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Yet, the sailor puts himself "back on the paths of the sea" (line 30). This represents the turning point for the sailor. He knows that nothing would change if he went back. The sailor explains that "frost bounds the earth and hail would fall" (line 32). The sailor knows deep in his heart that he hates it.…

    • 2108 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In both versions of the Dickinson’s poem the authors are able to give a better image to the reader, letting them connect to it on a personal level by using personification. In both versions an example of personification such as giving water the human quality of living, “The water lives so far”, and also giving the grass emotions, “The grass does not appear afraid” (1890/1999). Version B offers more examples of personification. With one version (1999) containing more examples of personification, the other version is lacking image and meaning. Although both poems seem to express the same meaning, Version B conveys a stronger image by using specific word choices and creating…

    • 1519 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Golden Boy Monologue

    • 1566 Words
    • 7 Pages

    When I look up at the azure sky, I see your eyes, reminding me of the night where they faded to old Levi’s. Sometimes, when the falling clouds burn a trail down my cheek, I see your face. It reminds me of how the rain washed away your scarlet life. The day that changed everything, you took me to our place so that I could get some inspiration, and we could have some alone time, as clichè as it sounded. It was an artist's dream to capture the harsh, vindictive tide, and the gentle receding caress of the ocean.…

    • 1566 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These three symbols can be easily connected to the sea because they are all from the sea, but also support the idea of chaos in this stanza. Reefs and binnacles are both known to be rough, dangerous objects in the ocean that if not careful around can cause damage; and sirens, which according to mythology were beautiful creatures that would lure men in with their music and singing and then eat them, supporting the theme of destruction and chaos. These themes support the connection between the poem and An-mei because in the novel An-mei loses a son to the ocean, which creates much chaos in her life and faith. The beginning of the stanza supports the idea that in the moment when An-mei “ walked back and threw the tube into the sea…’This will go where Bing is. I will bring him back,’ she said fiercely.…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Analyze the imagery in this poem. Imagery is all about what the reader thinks they would sense if they were present in a situation. If I were to put myself in the shoes of the narrator, I must…

    • 1514 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “The Calm” by Sean O’Brien is a four part metaphor representing the infinite serenity of the ocean and the stars as well as the revolving of a lighthouse in comparison to the people who have fallen from the light. In the first three stanzas we see beautiful metaphors comparing the rolling of the waves to the movement of the stars and, the revolving of the lighthouse to the tilt of the harbor. The poem continues to describe the inhabitants of a nearby bar who have fallen from stardom, sharing a moment with the “saved” before having to cross back with neither a ship nor a captain. Mechanically speaking the poem lacks a meter as well as a rhyme scheme meaning that the poem is written in free verse. This choice is deliberate as it contrasts the…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When a poet chooses the right word or collection of words, the reader is carried away into the world they are trying to create. The use of figurative language and imagery are elements of literature that give poets the opportunity to open doorways in the minds of those reading their literary works. They paint the picture, bring back the smells, and give the quiet pages sound. Such is true in the poems “The Lanyard” by Billy Collins and “A Song in the Front Yard” by Gwendolyn Brooks.…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Parent child relationship is very sensitive. The theme of the two poems “My Father in the Navy: A Childhood Memory” by Judith Ortiz Cofer and “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden shows the ‘Father’ plays an important role in the upbringing of child and sacrifices his days and nights in hard labors or services in order to provide the needs of his beloved children. Similarly a child returns a father’s love and care by showing his/her admiration and affection. . “Those Winter Sundays” is a story of a hardworking father and his son. The son realizes the love that the father bestowed upon him, but too light, still the lines of the poem depicts the appreciation and admiration that the child…

    • 817 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Dickinson's poems are filled images, metaphors and symbolism to creates memorable scenes. Her stanza forms and rhythmical nuances contribute to the poems effects. In “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” Emily Dickinson’s uses Death as an extended metaphor of what death might be like. He is not what we would think, an old clocked figure that is to be feared, but instead a young man. He is a good guy, a true gentleman.…

    • 141 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays