Darkness in Robert Frost’s and Emily Dickinson’s Poems Essay

The Image of Darkness in “Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost and “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” by Emily Dickinson

The poems “Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost and “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” by Emily Dickinson depict the images of the night and darkness in different ways. The poem of Emily Dickinson is more dynamic as it shows the process of getting accustomed, which is reflected in the following phrases: “we grow accustomed”, “they learn to see”, “the Darkness alters” (56). The imagery of the poem that includes the road also presupposes some action or development. The darkness in the poem appears suddenly (“when light is put away”), and it is absolute, not illuminated by moon or stars (Dickinson 56).

It enters the life of the characters and causes doubt and uncertainty. The uncertainty is reflected in the sentence structure itself, the sentences being disconnected, hesitant as the steps in the dark. The characters of the poem seek to change the situation, even though the author points out that bravery is needed for that. Their actions, however, can be harmful to themselves (“sometimes hit a Tree”) and do not appear to be necessary as it is the darkness that alters and adjusts (Dickinson 56).

In the end, the characters do not fight the darkness; they appear to survive it. Still, the change brought by the darkness is inevitable, and the life of the characters becomes only “almost straight” (Dickinson 56).

The imagery of the poem by Robert Frost is similarly depressing: it features rain, the “saddest city lane”, an interrupted cry, and all of these images are incorporated in that of the night (987). However, the night is not the source of uncertainty in this poem; in fact, the picture created by Frost is almost concrete and includes a city with people and particular objects (for example, the lights, the lane, the clock).

The character is unwilling to talk, “unwilling to explain” what he knows about the night, but this phrase presupposes that he does possess some knowledge about it (Frost 987). The tense repeatedly used by the author shows that the character has been familiar with the night for a prolonged amount of time. The sentence structure (featuring long constructions) is suitable for painting a static picture: while some occurrences do happen (for example, the cry), they are something the character is used to and not even interested in. The concept of time itself appears to be somewhat frozen since the time is “neither wrong nor right” (Frost 987).

Apart from that, in the poem by Frost, the darkness is not absolute, as it is interrupted by city lights and the “luminary clock” (987). These sources, however, appear to be unhelpful, as they do nothing to chase the night away. The last of the city lights is outwalked and, therefore, left behind, while the clock does not provide any valuable information.

The two poems depict one phenomenon portraying it as something inevitable and disturbing. However, the stages of relationships with this phenomenon are different for the two works. The poem by Dickinson shows the process of getting acquainted with the night and describes the confusion that a person feels when thrust in the dark. The consequences that the dark brings appear only in the last line and are mostly hinted as the author emphasizes the psychological state of the person. The character of the poem by Frost, on the other hand, has already gotten accustomed to the night and its nightmares and depicts them as something usual and irrelevant.

Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily. “We Grow Accustomed To The Dark”. The Pocket Emily Dickinson. : Shambhala. Ed. Brenda Hillman. Boston, Massachusetts: Shambhala, 2009. 56. Print.

Frost, Robert. “Acquainted With The Night”. Compact Literature. Ed. Laurie Kirszner and Stephen Mandell. Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage Learning, 2015. 987. Print.