Darkness and Night Poems

518 Words3 Pages
Both Emily Dickinson’s “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” provide a similar theme of darkness and night, but the meanings of darkness and night throughout each work are very different. The use of imagery, structure, and point of view help to show the similarities and differences between the two poems. Imagery helps in comparing and contrasting the different views of darkness and night that are expressed in “Acquainted with the Night” and “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”. Although both poems portray darkness and night in a negative way, they do it differently through the use of imagery. In Robert Frost’s poem, the imagery brings about a sad and depressing mood. In the line, “I have looked down the saddest city lane.” You can observe that the character is taking in his surroundings, which prove to be gloomy and depressing. It almost shows that he has a very negative outlook on life, like he’s stuck in a state of depression. On the other hand, in Dickinson’s poem the imagery brings about a state of confusion almost as if the narrator is lost in the darkness. This can be seen in “The Bravest – grope a little – And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead – But as they learn to see –” This line shows that the narrator is lost in the night and doesn’t know where to go, due to the inability to see anything in the dark. Both works deal with darkness and night, but with the help of imagery the authors were able to create different scenarios for their poems. The significance of darkness and night in each poem is portrayed through the use of point of view. In Emily Dickinson’s poem “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” she uses a plural point of view to explain how darkness affects everyone, and show that at some point in a person’s life they will have to experience darkness. In Robert Frost’s poem “Acquainted with the Night”,
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