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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The ambiguity and complexity of Dickinson’s symbols is one of the defining features of her poetry. In this poem, the speaker uses the symbol of a beam of light to embody the paradoxical experience they feel in their religious experiences. On one hand, light is often associated with positive feelings and experiences like hope, warmth, enlightenment, and salvation. The speaker depends on this connotation of hope in her thematic discussion of Despair. This sin, for 19th century Christians, was one of two sins that could keep someone from entering heaven. Light, then, represents that hope is still present, even if it is the dying light of “Winter Afternoons” (Line 2).
But the speaker makes clear they are talking about a “certain” (Line 1) beam of light. This light is a particular “Slant” (Line 1). This word choice indicates this symbol of the light is not straightforward. The word itself suggests the light is sloped or, symbolically, distorted due to a bias in a person’s point of view. If light represents faith, then the speaker seems to suggest human perspective distorts religious beliefs.
Dickinson explicitly connects the light to religious faith in the opening stanza.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
If you were coming in the fall
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson