Analysis of Brain Sky Essay

The Brain - is wider than the Sky -

For - put them side by side -

The one the other will contain

With ease - and You - beside -

The Brain is deeper than the sea -

For - hold them - Blue to Blue -

The one the other will absorb -

As Sponges - Buckets - do -

The Brain is just the weight of God -

For - Heft them - Pound for Pound -

And they will differ - if they do -

As Syllable from Sound

In the poem The Brain-is wider than the Sky, Emily Dickinson uses intense imagery, non-standard punctuation, and a clear firm tone to present her thesis of the brain as a powerful and limitless object.

The poem uses several concrete ideas, as well as an abstract idea that are all products of our brain. The brain is wider than a sky...deeper than a sea...the weight of God. It is our brain that can think of the sky. We know it is there, we see it, we may have read about it. As readers we imagine the greatness and limitless of the sky. Our brain, has created the idea of enormous size of the sky, noone has measured it or said where it ends, so we collectively believe it to be gigantic.

Dickinson, than goes further and compares our brain to a sea The Brain is deeper than the sea... The one the other will absorb. Again, we are familiar with the sea, we know it exists, we know that it is big and wide, and imagine it to be a powerful force of nature. The power of the sea is a product of our brain and imagination. The author describes our brain as a sponge that can absorb as much as a sea.

The more courageous comparison that Dickinson makes, is by using an analogy of

God and our brain The Brain is just the weight of God. At first glance the reader may think that she is putting the creation above the creator, but upon looking deeper at a poem we can see that she clarifies herself and says And they will differ - if they do -As Syllable from Sound. Our brain is able to conceive of the idea of God. Our brain is a syllable and God is sound, which are different, yet dependent on each other.

It is almost as if she goes through a pattern of creation and uses objects that we more familiar to the reader to show the enormous capability of our brain. The brain allows us to imagine and create objects and ideas in our minds, which we act on and believe inthis shows an enormous power that our brain has.