Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Dickinson was one slick lady. She was not shy at all when it came to writing about the "big" ideas like love, grief, death, and truth. And she was boss enough to be able to write about these big id...

Truth, in this poem, could also be the truth of God. We know Dickinson was a religious person and definitely believed in the Christian God. Just as the truth is revealed bit by bit in this poem, so...

The truth isn't the easiest thing to explain, especially when you're trying to explain just how to tell it, so Dickinson lends us a helping hand by placing a simile about lightning right smack dab...

On the front porch sat a cat with gray stripes. Or, a cat with gray stripes sat on the front porch. The first sentence is an example of inversion—a reversal of normal word order, or syntax, espec...

We can't actually see the truth. It's abstract, or something that exists without a concrete, physical presence, like love or grief. But even though we can't see the truth, Dickinson does her best t...