Literary Elements In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Dickinson’s poems use a stunning array of literary elements in order to reinforce the paradoxical nature of their purpose. These purposes range from a denouncement of religion and God, to her complex feelings towards death, to Dickinson’s declaration of her self-sufficiency and independence from society. “The Soul selects her own Society –“ is a Dickinson poem that conveys all three of these purposes. Using the literary elements and devices of religion, individualism, skepticism, sensory depictions, and body parts, Dickinson’s speaker in “The Soul Selects her own Society –“ boldly declares their feelings towards independence, society, and religion. “The Soul selects her own Society – / Then – shuts the Door –“: immediately, the poem’s speaker
In typical ambiguous Dickinson style, the “Emperor” is a conflation of God, and actual king, and Death. The ambiguity of the title “Emperor” enables the multiplicity of meaning from a single word, as an “Emperor” rules both religiously and physically over its people (since many emperors are viewed as Gods). In this interpretation, the speaker’s “Unmoved” soul parallels how Dickinson both spiritually and physically detached herself from society, denying both its customs and its traditions. The entire second stanza also parallels a funeral procession: “Chariots,” the carriage carrying the dead, pause at “her low Gate,” which is the entrance to a graveyard; the dead are “Unmoved” after they are placed in their graves for eternity. Additionally, this stanza’s external structure creates tension and anxiety through its frequent usage of dashes, creating the same dread that one has when facing death. This macabre imagery enables an analysis of the “Emperor” as Death. The close association between Death and God in this poem parallels Dickinson’s complex feelings towards religion and eternity: to Dickinson, the ultimate act of betrayal is the false hope of salvation that gets cruelly crushed at the end of one’s life. To this extent, Dickinson conflates God and Death into a single entity that both inspires hope and destroys it. The “Emperor” is “kneeling,” then, almost in forgiveness. The single image of the
Using the literary elements of structure, dichotomy, dualistic meanings, and physical imagery, Dickinson is able to advance her purpose and emphasize her religious skepticism. In the poem’s final image, Dickinson figuratively kills herself in order to free her “Soul,” embracing both life and death in a complex dichotomy that parallels her conflation of God and Death. Dickinson may have sacrificed a social life for her art, but this poem is proof that it was the right