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Difficulty: MediumExtended Metaphors and Conceits

Read the following poem by Emily Dickinson carefully before choosing your answer:

I like to see it lap the Miles -
And lick the Valleys up -
And stop to feed itself at Tanks -
And then, prodigious, step

Around a Pile of Mountains -
And supercilious peer
In Shanties - by the sides of Roads -
And then a Quarry pare

To fit its Ribs
And crawl between
Complaining all the while
In horrid - hooting stanza -
Then chase itself down Hill -

And neigh like Boanerges -
Then, prompter than a Star
Stop - docile and omnipotent -
At its own stable door -

In the context of the poem's extended metaphor, the description of the entity stopping "At its own stable door" (line 17) functions primarily to do which of the following?

  1. A
    depict a literal horse returning to its shelter after a tiring journey.
  2. B
    express the poet's biographical yearning to escape the pressures of industrialized society and return to domestic isolation.
  3. highlight how the object's wild, formidable journey is reconciled with its ultimate submission to human control.Answer
  4. D
    isolate the reference to the "stable door" as a separate, distinct metaphor representing the speaker's own sense of confinement.
  5. E
    identify the use of synecdoche to contrast the speaker's nostalgia for agricultural life with urban industrialization.

Answer

The choice stating that the description functions to highlight how the object's wild, formidable journey is reconciled with its ultimate submission to human control.
The correct option correctly identifies that the concluding lines of the poem resolve the tension of the central conceit. Throughout the poem, the train is described with the wild, powerful, and untamed attributes of a horse (e.g., 'neigh,' 'prodigious,' 'omnipotent'). However, by stopping 'At its own stable door' and becoming 'docile,' the train is revealed to be ultimately bound to human infrastructure and scheduled routes, illustrating how industrial power remains contained and managed by human design.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the vehicle and tenor of the extended metaphor.
The poem compares a train (tenor, represented by clues like 'Tanks' and 'Ribs' and 'hooting stanza') to a horse (vehicle, represented by 'lap,' 'neigh,' 'stable door').
Recognizing the extended metaphor is crucial to interpreting specific details.
2
Analyze the tone and diction in the final stanza.
The words 'docile' and 'omnipotent' create a paradox, showing that the immense power ('omnipotent') of the entity is matched by its obedience ('docile').
This helps determine the function of the resolution of the journey.
3
Evaluate the function of the final line within the overall conceit.
Stopping 'At its own stable door' represents the train arriving at the station, showing that despite its wild, animalistic speed, it conforms to a scheduled path and human control.
This provides the contextual meaning of the conceit's resolution.

Key Concept

Analyzing how the resolution of an extended metaphor or conceit contributes to the overall meaning of a poem.
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Topics

Extended Metaphors and Conceits

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