"'Twas Warm At First Like Us
Most poets that address the concepts of death use a unique, individual, and stylistic approach common to only his/her own writing. In "'Twas Warm At First Like Us," Emily Dickinson uses several poetic devices to dwell into a unique subtopic of death: the physical changes that the body undergoes shortly after this occurrence. Cleverly using diction, tone, and imagery, she tackles the event in stages and suggests an overall theme concerning the perception of death to the human mind.Dickinson uses the first stanza, specifically the first line, to set up the basic scene in which the process of death modifies as the poem moves along. The "it" she uses, stemming from the contraction "'Twas," contrasts with "us." This implies that the body has, not too long ago, lost its life and consequently, can no longer be classified as a he or a she. After the death, the body is still warm until the personification of the physical changes that occur after death begin to take place. The speaker refers to these physical changes creeping, "like frost upon a glass." Using creeping to describe these changes along with c
The poem is completed in the third and fourth stanza, and the corpse final undergoes the burial process. In the third stanza, the body finally breaks off completely from the living world to the dead. It becomes entirely stiff and loses all emotion, becoming fully "indifferent." This signals the readiness of the body to be buried. The corpse is "lowered like a weight" in the fourth stanza and does not object, signifying once again that it no longer holds living aspects. Rather, it "[drops] like adamant." The hidden meaning of the word adamant is significant in the poem. Described as an impenetrable stone, the corpse has now become rock hard and the transition from frost to ice to stone has now completed. Throughout the poem, Dickinson's use of tone, irony, and direct relationships contribute to finding meaning within the poem and thus, an overall theme can be formed: Humans tend to limit their perceptions of death to a pessimistic approach and fear it. Also, unable to face reality, humans view death in an ironic fashion, a form of denial, before accepting the truth. The tone almost entirely thro
Some common words found in the essay are:
Emily Dickinson, , physical changes, direct relationships, poet ironically, increasing horror, speaker displays, frost ice, overall theme, throughout poem, poem moves, degree coldness,
Approximate Word count = 749
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
