We Grow Accustomed to the Dark

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 2,000 poems during her lifetime, but published less than a dozen. “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” did not see readership until well after her death, in 1935—many decades after its estimated time of writing. Even today, this poem is relatively unknown in Dickinson’s studied canon among other poems like “I'm Nobody! Who are you?” and “Hope is the Thing with Feathers.”

Dickinson wrote a large body of her work during the American Civil War. This was a time of unprecedented darkness and may be what the poet had in mind when she wrote of the “Bravest” (Line 13). Although Dickinson was not directly part of the war efforts, its influence would have been felt around her all the time. It is worth considering, also, that people in the time period would have had a different relationship with light and dark than we do today, as this was prior to widespread electricity and household illumination. Therefore, many of Dickinson’s personal activities, and very possibly her poetry writing, would have been done in relative darkness by candlelight.

In addition to the limitations of her physical space, Dickinson was also a person whom, as a local physician noted, seemed to sometimes experience a nervous complaint. Many scholars have since speculated about more specific mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, and, it has been suggested, epilepsy. These illnesses were not well understood during Dickinson’s time, and those affected often had to manage them alone or face ineffective treatment regimes. Thus, she would have needed to “grow accustomed” to their presence within her mind. In this way, the poem’s balance of light and darkness can be read as an exploration of mental health challenges contrasted against fortitude and strength.