Sight In Emily Dickinson's Poems

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Do you see it now? Ever thought of what your life would be like if you lost an eye? How about if you lost your knowledge of everything? Famous poet Emily Dickinson experienced this in sense and expressed the experience in two of her poems, We Grow Accustomed To The Dark and Before I Got My Eye Put Out. The speaker in the poems often talk about sight in an ambiguous way. The speaker refers to sight as ignorance and resolutions.

Firstly, the speaker is referring to sight as ignorance in We Grow Accustomed To The Dark. The speaker gives this story a negative connotation with statements such as, “A Moment - We uncertain step For newness of the night - Then - fit our Vision to the Dark - And meet the Road - erect - ”(Dickinson, Lines 5-8). The negative connotation makes me believe that the speaker is referring to those who spend so much time “in the dark” or not being educated on something that …show more content…
The speaker has a much more positive connotation in this poem with statements such as, “Before I got my eye put out – I liked as well to see As other creatures, that have eyes – And know no other way –”(Dickinson, Lines 1-4).This quote is stating that people can be ignorant when they only know one way of “seeing” things. The often talk of finding the “light” and being imaginative when in the dark makes me believe the speaker is overcoming being in the “dark” and not being able to see things. A statement that supports my belief is “So safer – guess – with just my soul Opon the window pane Where other creatures put their eyes – Incautious – of the Sun –”(Lines 18-21). This statement is explaining that the speaker is willing to look at the light and become educated while others are not. That is why the speaker in Before I Got My Eye Put Out is referring to being educated and finding the light when in the

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