There's a Certain Slant of Light - Example Essay #3

Discus ways in which Dickinson presents pain in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’

Pain is important to the work of Dickinson. We see this in the poem ‘It was not death, for I stood up’ where the speaker’s pain is both physical and emotional, and ultimately “despair” is all that is felt except from pain. Pain is also seen in ‘I felt a Funeral in my brain’ where other people cause overwhelming sadness and pain which “breaks” the speaker. However, it is in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ that we see the most clear depiction of pain in Dickinson’s work. The poem explores how the light “oppresses” the speaker causing her soul to be damaged and destroyed.

The central symbol is ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ is the “light” which entraps the speaker on “winter afternoons”, the use of this pathetic fallacy emphasises the speaker’s feelings that this is the end as the pain is so overwhelming and dark. However, the speaker contrasts to this by describing her pain as “Heavenly hurt”; this oxymoron suggests that although the pain hurts her, she likes it as she is able to feel something after than depression. It also links to a religious experience and a transformation that may take place, but sadly for the speaker is does not as the “light” continues to oppress. The light damages the speaker internally rather than with a “scar” and so the damaged and destroyed soul is describes as “internal difference”; this further suggests that she is transforming as the light burns her and causes pain. The speaker’s ultimate fear of the pain is expressed through the light being described as “it” which emphasises the unspeakable pain. In ‘After great pain a formal feeling comes’ the speaker becomes “mechanical” with a “quartz” heart as she loses control of the recurring pain that has no end but rather continues to “go round”. Similarly to ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ the speaker wants to escape the pain; she wants to die as a way of escape but ultimately she is unable to.

In ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ the metre becomes distorted as the light damages the speaker. The use of iambic tetrametre and trimetre reflects the constant sense of loss and something missing, but it is in this loss that the speaker transforms and changes. The sense of loss is also conveyed through the use of a hyphen following “despair” which illustrates the speaker’s ultimate loss of hope as God does not protected her from the light. As the light’s “weight” overwhelms the speaker the line gets heavy and brings an awkward sense to the metre that reflects the “internal” damage that takes place. This change in metre is also symbolic of the speaker’s entrapment and the pain that brings upon her. The speaker uses pararhyme throughout the poem to convey that the world isn’t perfect and that “despair” is inevitable due to the pain we all suffer; the speaker goes on to use “we” and “us” to emphasise that everyone suffers the pain she feels. The speaker of ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’ drops down into hell however this is better than the pain she suffers from the overwhelming noise of her funeral. The use of hyphens through the poem emphasise the “Drum” beat which overwhelms her sense and “Ear” as the noises slowly destroy mentally and physically as the light does in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’.

The speaker mixes her senses in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ as the “light” continues to cause overwhelming pain; the “cathedral tunes” should be positive however becomes negative as they reflect the damage the light has on the speaker’s senses. And so the music she hears reflects her utter entrapment and her destroyed sight and hearing as the experience damages her. Entrapment and the pain it causes is further emphasises through the “seal” which can’t be open and so locks the speaker with the “light” and into her own “despair”. This despair can be seen to reflect the speaker’s punishment she receive from God as she loses all hope and faith due to the light’s astounding pain. Despair is also seen in the poem ‘It was not death, for I stood up’ where the speaker’s pain leads to total loss of hope that she feels more than just despair. The speaker becomes locked “without a key” which emphasises the forced entrapment which is suffered in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’, and the mental pain is leaves upon the speaker as a result.

Ultimately, pain is important to Dickinson’s work. The speaker suffers pain in ‘It was not death, for I stood up’ as her “marble feet” make her cold and immovable resulting in capture. In the poem ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’ the “Boots of Lead” effect the speaker as their repetitive sound damages her soul. However, ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ has the most evident use of pain; the speaker is “seal[ed]” by the “light” as it brings despair and internal scares upon her. 

After Great Pain A Formal Feeling Comes - Essay Plan

‘After Great Pain a formal feeling comes’

Pain/ Entrapment/ Hope and Hopelessness/ Time/ Freedom

Introduction

-          The ‘Funeral’ motif in I felt a Funeral, in my Brain conveys the entrapment, suggesting that she is emotionally dead and has surrendered to the lack of freedom

-          The last night that she lived where she expresses the pain of being trapped in the world that is ‘awful’ to her.  She sees being ‘dead’ as a way to escape from the pain

-          ‘Despair’ in It was not death, for I stood up that shows the image of her drifting away from hope / ‘fitted into a frame’: trapped by society

Central Symbol

Pain/ Entrapment/Hopeless

-          (See other sheet)

-          Dickinson uses a funeral motif to express her pain.  She compares ‘nerves ’to ‘tombs’, indicating the idea of emotional death

-          The ‘nerves sit ceremonious like tombs’ – funeral motif

-          They are like mourners in the funeral. The word ‘ceremonious’ suggests a sense of numbness after pain.  This is rather depressing as the visitors of her funeral seems to be just observing and question rather than feeling

-          The nerves that are supposed to be transmitters of feelings are turned into stone sarcophagi

-          Emphasising the stiffness of feelings

-          ‘Lead’ – a common soft and heavy metal as a metaphor for oppression

-          It intensifies the heaviness and solidity in the poem as referenced in ‘stone’

-          Signifies her lack of emotion

Time

-          Time is used as a symbol that gives her pain

-          The speaker compares her ‘heart’ to ‘a Quartz contentment’.  Quartz is a crystal used to make watches.  The image in the poem could suggests that the drained, unresponsive state being described has been distilled or crystallised from the anguish from earlier grief, ‘a formal feeling’ after the ‘pain’

-          This may be indicating that time is the reason for her entrapment.  It is a trap that will not release her

-          The speaker compares time to her entrapment – that they are both unending

-          She maybe suggesting that the entrapment is ‘mechanical’ like a watch – time ‘[goes] round’ and is continuous, there is no end to it.

-          Once her pain is ‘outlived’, it will come back again – like a viscous cycle

In Because I could not stop for death, time is also a significant indicator of the speaker’s feeling.  She claims that ‘eternity’ in death ‘feels shorter than the day’ she last lived.  This juxtaposition of time implies how awful she thinks life is to her that one day in live feels longer than ‘centuries’ buried in her grave

Structure

-          (See other sheet)

-          First stanza: Iambic beat and rhyming couplets

o   Enhance the portrayal of the pain: it is very intense

o   Adds onto the adjective ‘stiff’: the rhythm seems very frigid, suggesting that she is stuck and has frozen in place.

o   ‘The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs-‘: the nerves died and so she is forbidden to create any emotional attachment to the stanza

-          Middle stanza: begins and ends with iambic tetrameter but there are five lines

o   Breaking the sense of regularity sustained in the first stanza

o   Reflecting the severity of the pain.  It gives a heavy feeling that eventually extends the line

o   This also emphases the idea of endlessness of time that ‘[goes] round’: the viscous cycle of pain and sufferings

This contrasts with the idea of  ‘floorless’ in What mystery pervades a well that conveys a sense of utter freedom.  It suggests that there is no end to their world.  The enjambement of the line emphasises the perfection: it seems like floorlessness elongates the line.  The ‘sedge’, instead of being oppressed by a continuous pain, are free and limit are beyond reach.  

Technique

-          Is freedom possible?

-          In many of Dickinson’s poems, she seems to be suggesting that death is the only way to freedom – but is it actually possible? Can she escape from time?

-          No

o   She includes time indicators like ‘yesterday’ and ‘or centuries before’

o   Signaled by the capital H in ‘He’, the two phrases are questioning the time when Christ bore the suffering on the cross for man’s sins

o   This is indicating a loss of a sense of time.  It could be a reflection of how long the pain that the speaker is suffering has been going on

o   Perhaps it has been there for a long time the speaker is uncertain.  If it has been there and no solution is yet to be found, this may be suggesting that hope may not be possible

o   Moreover, her conclusion is directed to despair and surrender

o   ‘chill’, ‘stupor’ and ‘letting go’

o   She mirrors the stages experienced by suffers of hypothermia

o   The pain of the cold, the dulling of senses and the final loss of consciousness

o   Describing an emotional state in powerful physical terms:

o   Comparing the emotional state to the gradual freezing of a body, shows that she gives up in the fight for freedom

Yes – In This life is not conclusion where she hopes for the after life that the ‘soul’ lives on.  She sees that as an escape from the entrapment in her current life – ‘tooth’ symbolising the constant pain that make her suffer in life, which cannot be healed.  She assures herself that with this only solution:  ‘Faith slips – and laughs, and rallies –‘

This World is Not Conclusion - Notes #2

‘This World is not Conclusion’

Central Symbol	Techniques	Others
-          ‘Tooth’ -          She uses tooth pain as a metaphor of the pain and darkness in life -          It seems like they cannot be avoided, ‘stilled’, even by ‘Narcotics’ -          Dickinson’s portrayal of entrapment -          She has accepted the fact of being trap with suffering -          Only solution is to have faith and to believe in the possible after life -          She indicates the powerfulness of faith, in comparison to human power -          She suggests that science cannot cure pain – the narcotics, subscribed by doctors or ‘philosophy’ by ‘scholars’ cannot explain the reason -          Faith is something that is hard to understand	-          This poem contains Dickinson’s usual strange use of punctuation -          Other than the first line, Dickinson uses hyphens instead of full stops in the rest of her poem.  -          The use of full stop exclusively in the beginning: ‘This World is not Conclusion.’ presents a sense of certainty.  She does this to convey that she is definite about this statement -          She believes that there’s more to life than her current suffering. -          This displays the importance of faith: it is the only thing that is true and solid to her; it gives her hope and keeps her going -          The rest of the poem is filled with hyphens: ‘A Species stands beyond –‘.  -          Dickinson’s use of caesura breaks the poem in to fragments.  -          Contrasting to the first line, it evokes a sense of uncertainty -          It hammer home the question of religion -          The hyphens serve the purpose of allowing the readers to think about the words like ‘Crucifixion’ and ‘Hallelujahs roll’.  -          It questions the reader – can faith serve as the cure for the metaphor of ‘tooth’ pain?	-          The depiction of fear -          The structure of the poem is significant in portraying Dickinson’s fear of the ‘Species stands beyond’.  -          The poem is a free verse, which contrasts to her usual use of iambic tetra/tri metre with regular 4-lines stanza.  -          This suggests that she is afraid that there will not be an afterlife -          It has a feeling where she rushes throughout the poem to get rid of the terror -          Also it emphasises Dickinson’s central message regarding the religion -          A reference to ‘Crucifixion’ again gives a sense of euphemism.  She looks up to the example who got into heaven because he has ‘Faith’ -          She uses the idea of religion to calm herself down -          So that she will no longer be afraid of the uncertainty of her afterlife
This compares to What mystery pervades a well when the speaker confesses ‘the ones that cite her most Have never passed her haunted house’, claiming that man-kind can never comprehend God’s intention	Hyphens are also excessively used in Behind Me – dips Eternity – where hyphens are  used to create pauses.  It encapsulates words like ‘Eternity’ and ‘immortality’, showing entrapment and the fact that the speaker cannot find a way to escape	The metaphor of ‘narrow fellow’ representing a snake is another example of euphemism.  The speaker attempts to make anger more pleasant so to calm herself down

Entrapment/ Hope and Hopelessness / Afterlife

After Great Pain A Formal Feeling Comes - Notes #1

AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL FEELING COMES

A Useful Link: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/formal.html

THEME:  PAIN, ISOLATION, STRUGGLE OF EXISTENCE 

SYMBOL

-          “pain” – “formal feeling:

o   intense grief eventually gives way to  a formal feeling.  It is impossible to sustain the intensity, so the sufferer retreats into an unresponsive state, where emotions are frozen.

-          the depiction of an essentially paradoxical state of mind in which one is alive but yet numb to life, both a living organism and a frozen form.

-          Were the “great pain” at the beginning of the poem to be considered as a means for Dickinson to present the torment she is experiencing, assuredly its inclusion of striking imageries throughout the poem would be more conspicuous.

o   choice of word “after” implies to the readers how the poet retrieves her “formal feeling” after the ceaseless anguish

o   nevertheless, there is the ambiguity for the existence of “formal feeling” – it could be the delusion that is induced by abrupt demise of the previous perpetual pain.

-          “nerves… like tombs”

o   constitutes an atmosphere of formality, as if her life is under scrutiny, even upon death.

o   The use of the adjective, “ceremonious” connotes the idea of how every part of her, inclusive of the “nerves”, are expected to live under societal expectations

o   Idea of emotional death is intensified by making the nerves, usually the transmitters of feeling, into stone sarcophagi.

-          the helplessness and agony demonstrated within highlights the frustration that the society’s restraint has exerted upon her. In other way, there is also a subtle implication of how Dickinson employs the simile to signify a certain extent of self-defence. The continual agony has compelled her to alienate herself from the society and being reluctant to express any emotion as a result.

-          Although the poem is presented in such a lack of emotions and insensibility, without reserve, the preceding intense distress that the poet has endured would be the chief determinant. Such self-estrangement and desensitisation in sentiment are accentuated through the imageries of “the stiff heart”, “the mechanical feet” and the “ stone-like quartz”, which highlight the numbness of mental and spiritual detachment.

-          Semantic field of rigidity, representing the numbness that succeeds intense suffering

-          paradoxical mental state is revealed by the contradictive description of the “stiff heart” being able to “question”, the personification of “quartz” with “contentment” and in addition, the “mechanical feet” which epitomises the disengagement between her mind and body.

o   imageries are characterized by the possession of a common quality, the quality of “stiff” lifelessness; the insistence on this type of imagery is substantial in confirming the sense of numbed consciousness which is made more explicit by the statement that the feet move “mechanical(ly)” and are "regardless" of where they go.

STRUCTURE

-          lines are bound together, not only by the incessant reference of the imagery to the impact of melancholy, but also the fact that the poet is stating in series what happens to parts of the body: from “nerves” to “heart” to “feet”.

-          Instead of the iambic tetrameter that is usually employed within her poem, Dickinson judiciously applies the iambic pentameter to embody the constant headache she is enduring, and thereby, hinders her from constructing proper sentence structures.

-          lingering of “great pain” within herself has lead to such suppression on her emotions that the act of restraining her speech is a manifestation of confining one’s own lifestyle.

-          Ironically, the unconventional composition of rhyming couplets – “comes”, “tombs”, “bore”, “before” allude to the fact that the ability of self-constraint within Dickinson has been disparaged to such severity that which only agony could repress her recalcitrance.

-          The prolonged stanza in the middle evinces a sense of ponderosity that is provoked by the burden of “stone” acting upon the line; the elongation in this stanza denotes the poet’s sombre mentality invigorating the faltering of speech

-          the adoption of assonance with ‘ought’, ‘stone’ mimic the resonance one would predominantly affiliate with the sheer intensity of pain.

-          the disposition of hyphenation symbolises the stuttering tone of speech and the entrapment of sensibility so as to evade from further affliction.

FEATURES

-          the end of the poem, the poet employs the simile of hypothermia to depict the stages of one’s combat with depression; “Chill” precedes the poem, whereas the "Stupor--" preoccupies it; subsequently "the letting go--" exists on the far side of its ending.

o   Use of hyphens  to fragment the iambi pentameter, slowing it and mirroring the stages experienced by sufferers of hypothermia – pain of cold, the dulling of senses and the final loss of consciousness or will to fight.

o   This line represents the transition, once again, from agony to numbness, represented by the change that people physically undergo when exposed to cold. First comes the chill, which is extreme pain. Stupor is unresponsiveness. Letting go, then, can represent two things, either death or acceptance. Death can represent the idea that the narrator is overcome by extreme pain and sadness permanently and “dies” as one would of hypothermia. However, “letting go” can also refer to letting go of the pain, and that death is some kind of permanent relief from suffering, perhaps symbolizing acceptance or coming to terms with what happened.

o   In a way, this line can represent the choice of the narrator, either to drown in terrible event and its memory, or to somehow regain her humanness, through letting go of the pain associated with the memory in order to heal.

-          Should the deification of ‘Heart’ resemble the anamorphic state of her rationality, incontestably, the sense of detachment that is entailed within would be considered more salient.

o   Such rupture is reiterated through the metaphorical link between the heart and “quartz”, suggesting the inorganic facet of the poet, in which no cessation can be detected, but only with the recurrent forthcoming of suffering

-          Reinstating this unremitting experience, Dickinson illustrates the circular movement of “the feet” “going round” and thereby typifying the lack of control in her life, even upon the notion of time. The poet’s mentality is immersed in such paralysis that the disparity between “yesterday” and “centuries” is obsolete to her.

-          “yesterday—or centuries before?”

o   The phrase also evokes the timeless quality of suffering. All human beings have suffered throughout history, be it symbolically as Christ did (mentioned in the previous line) or physically and emotionally. Thus, pain as a human experience is eternal, yet constraining. It perpetually shackles us because it is inextricably linked with the human condition.

-          With the employment of the definite article – “The” in coalescence with “nerves”, “heart” and “feet”, accentuate the sense of severance that which the poet holds from her organs.

-          Such apathy towards life is revealed through “ought”; she is engrossed by the omnipresent pain in which the deception of being condemned to the realms of the inferno is engendered.

-          “This is the hour of lead”

o   with the symbolic imagery of “lead” being poisonous and heavy, the poet is not only highlighting her headache and its aftermath, but also emphasising the existing era that transcends the norm.

-          The ‘chill’ that which precedes the ‘letting go’ but disconnected by the ‘stupor’ standing in the midst of such a current state of liminality, would seek to allow one to infer correlation with the reference of hypothermia from the simile ‘as freezing persons recollect the snow’ – such equates the emotionless notion of death to that of surrendering to reality.

CONCLUSION:
After all, the desensitisation is nothing but merely a veil “to justify despair”.

MAIN QUOTATIONS

-          “hour of lead”

-          “first chill, then stupor, then the letting go”

-          “mechanical feet go round”

-          “nerves sit ceremonious like tombs”

RHYMES

-          “comes”, “tombs”

-          “bore, before”

This World is Not Conclusion - Notes #1

A useful webpage: http://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/this-world-is-not-conclusion.html

THIS WORLD IS NOT CONCLUSION

THEMES: HOPE, TIME, ANGER AT WORLD, HAPPINESS, AFTERLIFE

SYMBOL

-          “Tooth”

o   The metaphor is concise: the soul is as a person with a toothache being treated by a dentist. Despite the painkillers and anesthetics the dentist may provide, the toothache endures. The metaphor is expanded however, as it is not the nerves inside the tooth that ache, but the tooth itself that “nibbles.” What gnaws at us spiritually is alive.

-          “this world is not conclusion”

o   expression of confidence in there being more to life than this ® “species stand beyond”

o   There is more to reality than this everyday world we live in, but we can only form conjectures about it. Christianity has inspired martyrs but “Faith” still “slips.” There really is no conclusion—all our searchings lead to questions rather than answers. Existence doesn't "conclude" at death. Dickinson is using both meanings of "conclusion": the answer to a question and the end of an affair.

o   The apparent omission of the determiner ‘a’ draws us to seeing the capitalised ‘Conclusion’ even more as a proper noun and thereby further develops the irony that this world is not all there is. The full stop becomes ironic in its finality.

-          “narcotics cannot still the tooth that nibbles at the soul”

o   the last two lines put all into perspective.  The Marquis de Sade and Marx had both previously likened religion to opium.  In this extended, corporeal metaphor, Dickinson takes this idea further by referring to various human activities as being opiates that fail to numb aching personal experience: the various opiates are enumerated in the poem as being contempt, crucifixion, organised religion, philosophy, academia and faltering faith; the suffering of personal experience gradually wears away the spiritual integrity of the soul.

STRUCTURE

-          no paragraphing

o   there is not a “frame” ® embodies liberty and freedom

-          one full stop and lots of hyphens

o   full stop® the only thing that the poet is definite® she is certain that there is some that “stand beyond” life ®assuring herself

o   lots of hyphens  ® there’s no conclusion of this, hammers home the fact that there is eternity, enjambment exemplifies flow of freedom

-          non-structural

o   there is no restriction and confinement here 

-          solid rhyme: “soul”, “roll”

FEATURES

-          “gestures from the pulpit”

o   Gesturing from “the pulpit” may dull the pain as a “narcotic” might; “Strong Hallelujahs” from the congregation might help, too. But ultimately that “Tooth” will “nibble at our souls” until the day we pass through that “Riddle”

-          Although there is no paragraphing , but we could separate the verse by the poet’s flow of ideas

o   The first quatrains establishes the poet’s belief that there are beings beyond earthly life. They are invisible, like music, but as real as the sound that music makes.

o   Next we see that there is a world beyond this one that “beckons” yet “baffles” us. Philosophy and wisdom can’t help us find it. At the end we must all pass through that “Riddle” that is death to find out what lies beyond.

o   Yet so great is the mystery that scholars continually puzzle over it and the seekers have “borne / Contempt” of their generation and even crucifixion to gain what seems to be the prize that beckons

-          “invisible, as music”

o   The analogy with music is a strong affirmation of Dickinson’s belief, as well as being a concise example of how it is possible to ‘intuit’ when there is no experience through our senses: music – which can be heard but not seen – is a metaphor for knowing without empirical evidence.

-          Faith in the afterlife is beyond reason and objective experiment, regardless of some of Dickinson’s contemporaries’ efforts to weigh the soul. But she also points to the martyrs of their faith who give all to achieve it. But her feelings toward this religious view of the next life is obvious. Religion, for Dickinson, cannot disguise the truth of our inevitable leaning into eternity.

CONCLUSION

“Sagacity” cannot serve as the “narcotics” to our soul, but the recognition of “this world is not conclusion” is sufficient to tranquilise and lead us to liberation.

MAIN QUOTATIONS

-          “narcotics cannot still the tooth, that nibbles at the soul”

-          “invisible, like music”, “species stand beyond”

-          “faith slips, and laughs, and rallies”

-          “twigs of evidence and ask a vane”

-          “philosophy don't know, sagacity must go”

RHYMES

-          solid rhyme: “roll”, “soul”