After great pain, a formal feeling comes - - (341)

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Emily Dickinson
katie.browell
Note by katie.browell, updated more than 1 year ago
katie.browell
Created by katie.browell about 10 years ago
300
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Resource summary

Page 1

Rhyming Scheme -  1st Stanza, final two lines Exact rhyme 'bore,' 'before?'2nd and 3rd Stanza, final two lines slant rhyme 'grown,' 'stone - ' 'Snow - -' 'go - ' (As the speaker move closer to the 'Hour of Lead')Devices - Metaphor  'The Feet, mechanical' 'the Hour of Lead' Simile 'like Tombs - - ' 'like a stone' - causes the reader to assoicate the object being described with the simile, eg the Nerves are then associated with attending a funeral serviceAliteration - 'Formal feeling' Creates a more calm and relaxed feeling to the Formal FeelingAssonance - 'round - - Of Ground,' Slows and merges the words together, emphasizing the purposeless movement Personification 'The Nerves sit' 'The stiff Heart questions' - Parts of the body are used synecdonchally for the persons mind, each is given an individual existance and mind and feelings of its ownDashes - Slow the pace, forcing the reader to slow - emphasis the meaningless movement, lack of all feeling and then the freezing to death Mood - Calm, formal, controlled, detached, contained, stiff, Setting - Internal,Characters -  Physical body parts (Nerves, Heart, Feet)Messages - After a great emotional pain the greatest feeling you will experience is the lack of all feeling, numbness, stiffnessThemes - Pain, Death of positive emotions/all feeling (simile's and analogies of death), Possible association with Religion

After great pain, a formal feeling comes - - The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs - -The stiff Heart questions, was it He, that bore,And Yesterday, or Centuries before?The Feet, mechanical, go round - - Of Ground, or Air, or Ought - - A Wooden wayRegardless grown,A Quartz contentment, like a stone - - This is the Hour of Lead - - Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow - - First - - Chill - - Then Stupor - - then the letting go - 

The

The mental after effects following a great pain

Described using images associated with the body, nature and physical death

'Formal feeling' - not hysteria or violent emotional distress but a feeling of control 

Possibly trying to connect its suffering with Christs on the cross

No specific persona, the person is described and identified though body parts - the Nerves, the Heart, the Feet - given an individual existence. 

An analogy of Freezing to death

There is a slow gradual movement towards a numbness, stiffness, paralysis, 'The Hour of Lead' - a moment remembered even if outlived 

Parts of the body are used synecdonchally for the persons mind.

Personified with a simile that suggests people are sitting at a Funeral service

Formality, stiffness, control, cold, bitter

Confusion within the Heart - how does a Heart question?

Moving aimlessly , movement without meaning/progress

Amount of pauses emphasis this lack of progression, as it slows the reader down

Paradoxical serenity that follows pain 

Quartz - loss of feeling, numbness - yet a feeling of contentment comes with this lack of feeling

The effects of a great pain is no feeling at all, the absences of pain

Chill - the great painStupor - the emotional response to painletting go - the future of letting go of this painThis is also an analogy of freezing to death, suggesting that the emotional response to a great pain is equal to the pain of a slow, cold, numb death. Emphasises by the dashes, slowing down the reader and the effects of slowly freezing to death

Formal - calm, polite, controlled, no hysteria or painic

Suffered for so long it forgot

PersonificationSimileMetaphor

Internal feelings,Death

Metaphor

Metaphor

Poem

Technique

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