Ellie Howell

Curmano
L.A P.3
6 April 2016

When Emily Dickinson wrote Heavenly Father in the 1800s, there were 204 million
Christians worldwide. This leads me to believe that this poem is a prayer. Heavy with poetic
devices like allusion, metaphors, visual imagery, and also the format of this poem helps me
understand the prayerfulness of her words. A tone of sincerity supports the theme that
forgiveness should be asked for even though we will sin again.
The poetic devices in Emily Dickinsons Heavenly Father are plentiful. The first device
is obvious to the reader. Emily starts the poem saying Heavenly Father (Dickinson 1) which is
an allusion to God. This implies that the poem could be a prayer since she starts out addressing
Heavenly Father and that is a common way of beginning a prayer. The next poetic device is a
metaphor. She exclaims that We are dust (6). I believe that when she says this she was most
likely referring to the story of Adam and Eve. In the Bible, Adam was created out of literal dust
and that is what Emily is implying. Using visual imagery she stated that we were Fashioned by
the candid hand (3). This brings to mind truthfulness. So when she says this it means the
truthful hand of God. He is trustworthy and he created the human race with intention. With
multiple poetic devices in Emily Dickinson's Heavenly Father you can piece together that this
could be a prayer.
Emily Dickinsons poem Heavenly Father is a prayer with a sincere and ceremonious
tone. She shows sincerity when she says, We apologize to thee (Dickinson 7). Sincere means
she is not pretending to ask for forgiveness, she honestly wants forgiveness and not only for

herself, but all of humanity as well. The reason I think this, is the poem seems to be narrated by
Emily. She says We and Us often in the poem as in lines 5,6,and 7. The poem is ceremonious
in tone also. An example would be when she writes Heavenly Father (1). This could be a sign
of devotion. Dickinson lived in a time period where the vast majority of the population was
Christian and prayers were said every day. Since there were so many Christians this could mean
that the poem was meant for other Christians to read. As a result of the sincere and ceremonious
tone of this poem it reads as a prayer.
I believe that Emily Dickinsons poem Heavenly Father is a prayer from its poetic
devices, format, and tones that support the theme that forgiveness should be asked for even
though we will sin again.

Works Cited

Hunter, Emily Dickinson - Poem. "Heavenly Father Poem."Poemhunter.com. N.p.,

18 Jan. 2015. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.