Journal #41

Emily Dickinson's poem, "Pain has an element of blank" is a beautiful and creative work of literature. Although the poem itself is extremely short, its meaning and the image it projects is strong and powerful. In the poem, Dickinson refers to pain and the different elements of pain (Dickinson). Dickinson states that pain "has an element of blank," which I think is a very intriguing thought, and it is definitely true (Dickinson). She recalls that pain, once it begins, makes the body and the mind forget about when there had not been pain; all one can think about is the current pain they are in and it is hard to recall the better feeling they had had beforehand (Dickinson). Like I said, I think this is a very interesting way of wording her thoughts, and the statement is, in my opinion, completely correct. For example, one might be running and sprain their ankle very terribly. This is a very painful occurrence that actually happens quite often to people. The thing that is the worst about a sprained ankle is that it literally affects someone pretty much all the time. When one is sitting, they can feel the throb of the blood as it swells around the tender ankle, and when one begins to walk on the ankle, it causes very much pain and most likely makes the wounded individual have to hobble or use some kind of a crutch. When one sprains their ankle, it becomes very hard to remember what their ankle had felt like before it was in pain; people tend to take lack of pain for granted and then, once injured, can only think about the pain they are in. Emily Dickinson did a phenomenal job of expressing this thought. I also thought it was interesting how she wrote about the fact that pain also has no future; this, too, is very true, as it is hard to see an end when one is enduring unbearable pain (Dickinson). I am not entirely sure if this poem is supposed to be very incredibly deep or have any meaning besides the literal meaning, but I feel that this poem, taken literally, is very powerful and definitely interesting.

WORKS CITED

Dickinson, Emily. "Pain has an element of blank." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. 2011. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. .