Comparing Phyllis Wheatley's Upon Being Brought From Africa To America

In all four poems, each poet has a similar use of literary devices throughout their poems. One poem may

Phyllis Wheatley writes the poem “Upon Being Brought from Africa to America”, to demonstrate Christianity and the struggles of blacks in slavery. In line two, Wheatley uses a metaphor as her literary device. She emphasizes her “benighted soul to understand”, to illustrate that her soul is blackened and how lost she feel because of her transition from Africa to America. There is also a use of hyperbole in line six, describing the color black as “diabolic dye”. Wheatley is quoting how white people see the color of blacks as an evil color like the devil. “Their colour is a diabolic dye”, this quote is giving the reader an exaggeration of

Throughout the poem, Dickinson describes Death as a male that keeps coming for her while she is trying to escape him. In the first two lines, she uses personification, giving Death human characteristics. “Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me,” emphasizing death as a male and how he has stopped for her at this point. In lines 9-12, Dickinson uses imagery to create a picture for the reader to emphasize what she and Death are witnessing as they are passing through the area. Imagery is used throughout the poem to illustrate what she is seeing such as children at recess and passing the Fields of Gazing Grain and watching the Sun Set as they take a walk.

In lines 1-2 in “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church”, Dickinson uses metaphor as her literary device. The Sabbath is being described as the seventh day of the week which is Sunday. The first line, “Some keep the Sabbath going to church”, illustrates that some would rather spend their Sunday going to church to worship God. Instead of using the Sunday to illustrate that it’s the day that people worship the Lord at church, she substitutes Sabbath for the word