Human Anxiety In The Night

Man fears the darkness of night for the same reason he fears dying – because it is a place of uncertainty and within it lies the unknown. Not being able to anticipate occurrences and obstacles is often even more unnerving than being sure of them, and not being able to change the outcome. Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost explore this common source of human anxiety in the darkness and the night in their works: “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and “Acquainted with the Night.” In Frost’s poem he examines the temporary feelings of isolation that a person may feel in the darkness, while Dickinson uses the darkness to reflect an unnerving feeling of being perpetually lost at night. Despite the major differences between the two works, both poems, portray the night and the dark as an obstacle to man’s innermost insecurities.
The speaker in “We grow accustomed to the Dark” observes the general behavior of man in the dark. The first line of the poem communicates the speaker’s attitude towards the behavior of people when faced by the obstacles of the dark, and then throughout the rest of the poem, the speaker examines the details of the night in order to show how someone may become accustomed to the dark. These details are mostly descriptions of people’s reactions to the dark. Dickinson uses vivid description to create images of the clumsiness of man when he is moving maneuvering through the dark. Dickinson uses phrases such as “we uncertain step” and “grope a little” to create a vivid image of the awkward and uncertain nature of people’s actions when first confronted with unfamiliar situations. These descriptions of clumsiness contrast with the descriptions in the last stanza in which Dickinson shows that man becomes adjusts to the night, and “steps almost straight” (line