Success Is Counted Sweetest By Emily Dickenson Essay
1456 Words6 Pages
Leo Tolstoy once said, “If you look for perfection, you’ll never be content.” I cannot help but agree with Mr. Tolstoy, I believe that perfection does not exist in any shape or form anywhere. Others may refute Mr. Tolstoy and I’s belief but to those I say bring me someone who has never faced hardship or suffering of any kind, they will never be able to find this person because they do not exist. My request is an impossible task. With that being said in the different works of many poets they see it fit to write about something any human at any point in time can relate to, the struggles of the human condition. Poets may not focus an entire work on this concept but in some form or fashion this idea is apparent in many works due to its large presence…show more content… This is extremely evident in the poems first two lines when it states “Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed.” () This establishes the theme of the story and demonstrates the human desire for something that they cannot have, which in this case is success. Dickenson plays on the emphasis on success through the alliteration with the repetition of the ‘s’ sound. When someone experiences success when they often do not they will cherish it more than someone who experiences victory often. By using paradox as the main figure of speech in the first two lines it helps relay the idea that the theme of the poem can apply to anyone. The need for victory is conveyed in a metaphor when it states, “To comprehend a nectar requires sorest need.” () Dickenson is trying to convey that whenever you do taste victory after striving for it for so long that it is built up so much in ones head that the feeling of success will truly never be found and the ability to appreciate new found success will soon be lost. This nectar that is discussed is a symbol of success and demonstrates that in order to taste the true meaning of success and to appreciate it you must first experience failure. In stanza two failure is demonstrated when it depicts a battle with the victorious kings celebrating while leaving the dying soldiers…show more content… In this poem Frost depicts the speaker standing at a fork in the road facing two paths. The choice of picking between the two paths was created to be a metaphor for the choices in life. This choice is a symbol of the free will we possess to make decisions and the fate that comes with the choices we make. The poem is written in first person, which leads me to believe that the speaker itself is Robert Frost. What would lead Frost to write this, I am not sure, maybe he was faced with a choice and picked the wrong road and regretted not choosing the other. The poem is written in iambic tetrameter, with four stanzas of five lines with a rhyme scheme of ABAAB. In the first stanza it depicts the speaker in the woods in autumn, due to the color yellow mentioned the changing color of the leaves that have now fallen on the ground making the paths yellow depicts the season of autumn, while standing on this yellow path he is faced with a choice between two paths that go in two different directions. He contemplates his choices standing at the fork in the road, disappointed that he cannot take both but one path seems preferable to him throughout stanza one and two until stanza three where he determines both paths are equal. Both paths are equally traveled one is just covered in underbrush, The speaker chooses one and