17 pages • 34 minutes read
Emily DickinsonTell all the truth but tell it slant
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1890A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Dashes
Dashes are a signature punctuation symbol throughout Dickinson’s repertoire. Dickinson uses dashes in different ways, depending on the poem. For example, some dashes create a pause for emphasis, whereas others replace punctuation (Khabarov, Kristina. “Dickinson’s Use of Dashes.” Great Works of Literature. 2019). Both functions are at work for “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” as seen at the end of Lines 1 and 8, where they follow the words “slant” and “blind.” The dashes function as a pause and a period, and they are the only punctuation marks in the entire poem. In addition, by adding an intentional pause, the reader focuses on both the how (how to tell the truth) and the what (the outcome if the truth is told unfettered). Dickinson also utilizes their placement in the first and last line as the architecture of the poem, encasing a carefully contrived, dualistic narrative.
Capitalization
Dashes are not the only motif present in Dickinson’s poems. She uses capital letters in ways that seem initially arbitrary, until the reader gives a second look. With the exception of the first letter of each line, Dickinson capitalizes the following words: Success (Line 2), Circuit (Line 2), Delight (Line 3),Truth (Line 4), Lightning and Children (Line 5), and Truth (Line 7). This adds direction and focus to specific ideas.
When taking a look at these vocabulary choices away from their lines, it becomes clear the truth is positive, for the most part, and telling it slant maintains that positivity. Choosing words like “Success” (Line 2) and “Delight” (Line 3) render the truth as profoundly positive. As dialectics work, Dickinson holds space for the uncomfortable, scary, dangerous, and even beautiful (“Lightning”) and its audience, the vulnerable (“Children”). Interestingly, Dickinson doesn’t capitalize “truth” in the first line, perhaps to present the notion in its most nascent state, ready to be molded as Dickinson moves from line to line.
Light
Dickinson utilizes a traditional symbol for knowledge and truth: light. In Lines 2 and 3, it manifests as an energy (“Success in Circuit”) and as overwhelming light, perhaps a nod to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, in which one must let their eyes adjust gradually to knowledge and “heightened reality” after being so long in the dark.
Like Plato, Dickinson advises the reader to let the truth “dazzle gradually” (Line 7) in a carefully contrived way. She extends the light to include both positive and negative properties, as seen at the end of Line 8 (“blindness”).
Dickinson uses the image of lightning to convey to the reader the potential damage the truth can bring. It fascinates, surprises, and destroys. Its nature is positive and negative charges, with one slowly building up in intensity. Perhaps lies, in this case, help release some of the dangerous energy that the truth can bring.
Related Titles
By Emily Dickinson
