Emily Dickinson’s Comparative Writings
Emily Dickinson’s Comparative Writings
In the poems "It sifts from leaden sieves" and "T was warm at first like us," Emily Dickinson uses several language devices to help guide us in our perception of what she is writing. Metaphors and similes are used to compare like objects. The technique of personification is used to personify the meaning of the poems. Finally, metonymy is used to compare significant details of experiences to represent the whole.
The first similarity between the two poems is the use of fourth form metaphors. In fourth form metaphors, both the literal term as well as the figurative term are implied. In "It sifts from leaden sieves" the figurative term is implied to be flour (1). On the other hand, In "T was warm at first like us "It ruffles wrist of posts, as ankles of a queen", the literal term is implied to be snow (17). The actual terms are never named only implied. Meanwhile in "Twas warm at first like us," the literal and figurative terms are not named either. We only get a mental image of what is being implied. "Twas warm at first like us" compares the literal term "It" to the figurative terms "us" where "it" is personified as a living person (1). "It multiplied indifference as pride were all it could" gives us another image of the actual literal term (11).
In both poems, we see the literal term as snow. In "It sifts from leaden sieves," "Then still in artisans like ghosts, denying they have been" personifies snow as being a ghost, which disappears like it was never there (19,20). In "T was warm at first like us," personifies snow as an object once living. This is similarly compared to the other poem in that both objects were once living and or white in color. By using similar metaphors in both poems, we can compare the two.
Finally, we can compare the metonymy used in these two poems. In "It shifts from leaden sieves," the figurative term, which is flour, can be closely related in appearance to the literal term, which is snow, in appearance. "Alabaster wool" or "celestial veil" similarly relates to the color of snow. While in " T was warm at first like us" the metonymy described with "The fingers grew too cold" or "the busy eyes congealed". These lines seem to compare...