Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The speaker is a young woman who has set out to see the ocean.
Form and Meter
The poem is six stanzas long with a ABCB rhyme scheme.
Metaphors and Similes
The speaker metaphorically compares herself to a mouse in the early part of the poem. Further on, she uses a simile to imagine herself being swallowed by the sea like a "dew" on "a dandelion's sleeve."
Alliteration and Assonance
The following phrases contain alliteration in their H, M and S sounds, respectively: "Extended Hempen Hands," "But no Man moved Me" and "Went past my simple Shoe."
Irony
N/A
Genre
Nature poetry, Ocean poetry
Setting
The poem is set on a beach.
Tone
Uneasy, frightened, awestruck
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is the speaker and the antagonist is the water that is trying to sweep her out to sea.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is the speaker's struggle to escape the pull of the tide which has forced her into the water.
Climax
The climax comes when the speaker makes her attempt to flee the water, closely pursued by the force of the tide.
Foreshadowing
The inclusion of mermaids at the poem's beginning implies that the speaker's initial wonder will likely give way to fear.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
Mermaids are an allusion to mythology. Frigates are allusion to a ship common during the period in which Dickinson was writing.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
The sea is personified as a malevolent male figure. The ropes abroad the frigate are personified by the inclusion of the word "hands" in the second line of the second stanza.
Hyperbole
The first two lines of the fourth stanza ("As wholly as a Dew / Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –") is slightly hyperbolic. The speaker's fear of being swept out to sea is also hyperbolic, and her feeling of physical insignificance is heightened by panic.
Onomatopoeia
N/A
