Live, Living Life At first glance, Emily Dickinson’s poem #470 seems to be written by a depressed and apathetical person. However, upon further examination, it is clear this is not the case. Dickinson’s consistent and constant use of the same forms of meter, tone, rhythm, and sound brilliantly creates a level of security and stability in the poem, which is destroyed in an effort to emphasize the instability and false security in “accepted society.” …showed first 75 words of 657 total…

…showed last 75 words of 657 total…it is destroyed unmasks a breech in the “security,” showing that society’s security is false. Lastly, Dickinson’s use of Iambic meter, regarded by many as the “meter of life” delivers a huge blow to socially accepted “life.” Not only does Dickinson use the meter of life sarcastically to denounce life, she also, ironically, kills the Iambs, using life to kill life and imposing a message of false or lifeless existence by “ordered society.”