Poetry Literary Essay

“We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” by Emily Dickinson and “Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost both share the concept of darkness being a struggle, stress, and depression. Every poem uses techniques like P.O.V, imagery, and structure to alter with the feel of the poem. Both poems use these techniques to give the reader a view from different sides.

Both poems show different P.O.Vs in different ways. In “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”, Dickinson uses the term “we” throughout the poem which gives the reader a sense that the author is referring to a group or more than two people. Maybe even the reader. “We grow accustomed to the Dark- When light is put away”. When using we, it makes us feel like what is happening can be applied to more than one person. It makes us think we are not alone, which can make the poem feel very moody. In “Acquainted with the Night”, Frost uses the term “I” throughout the poem. “I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain- and back in rain”. This makes us think of a person who is stuck in the world of depression and sadness and doesn’t know how to overcome it. Using “I” throughout the poem gives the reader a better interpretation of the person being trapped or stuck and they feel as if they cant escape. The speaker doesn’t show much feeling, he doesn’t share his problems with anybody, that is why he can’t over come depression.

Imagery is an authors craft device used in both poems. Imagery is when metaphors, similes, descriptions, etc. paint a picture in your head of what is happening in the poem. For example in “Acquainted with the Night” the speaker says, “Still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky.” The word luminary means to be bright or to reflect light. From this quote, we can infer that the “luminary clock” is the moon because the moon can be used to tell time and it very luminary. In “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” , there is a steady use of darkness being depression and stress. And light being a symbol of hope. We can identify this because the tone of the poem is very dark, it is about a group of people entering a life of depression and stress.

The structure of the poems are not so alike. The structure of the poem “Acquainted with the Night” , is in very short 3 burst stanzas. These 3 lined stanzas are very emotionless. They show no feeling; this makes us think that the speaker is trapped in a world of depression and stress and he doesn’t know how to cope with it or how to overcome it. In “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”, we get the uneasy feeling of stumbling. The author uses hyphens throughout the poem to leave an uneasy feeling. This gives us an uneasy feeling because it is stopping in the middle of a stanza uncomfortably.

In conclusion, both poems share the same authors craft techniques. P.O.V, imagery, and structure to give the poems their very own feeling. These 2 poems can connect to the real world because people are in real life struggles they don’t know how to get out of. People let depression take over their life and they don’t reach out to others for help.