Personal Narrative-Enthralled (Hypnotized)

The experience of darkness is both individual and universal. Within Emily Dickinson’s “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night,” the speakers engage in an understanding of darkness and night as much greater than themselves. Every individual has an experience of the isolation of the night, as chronicled in Frost’s poem, yet it is a global experience that everyone must face, on which Dickinson’s poem elaborates. Through the use of rhythm, point of view, imagery, and mood, each poet makes clear the fact that there is no single darkness that is too difficult to overcome.

Bogard first introduced the topic with a personal anecdote that described his experiences with darkness as a child. Imagery such as “hands disappeared before my eyes” and “meteors left smoky trails” evoked nostalgia among the readers. Suddenly, Bogard transitions from the romantic descriptions of the past night sky to cold hard statistics of the current generation. Statistics indicates that only 2/10 children in the US will know a sky dark enough for the Milky Way, brining awareness to the

In the Los Angeles Times 2012 article “Let There Be Dark”, author Paul Bogard’s main purpose is to persuade his audience that natural darkness should be preserved. Paul Bogard describes the “smoky trails” left by meteors in the Minnesota summer night skies and the problem of light pollution diminishing the “irreplaceable value” of our natural darkness.

The stars are bright and radiant-- their numbers are vast beyond all imagination. They shine in the dark sky, like billions of little lights hanging from nonexistent threads. It is a reality that not many people stop to admire. In the city people sink down into their couches at night and drift away, eventually, to the slumber that most people crave. But the stars, shining endlessly, are there night after night, in the rain and even in the snow. If you just stop for a moment, on a night with no clouds, and look up, you will see this magnificent

I start to think through the whole night, struggling to detangle a story, even a sentence, from my racing memories. Every moment under the stars that seemed so perfect at the time, even that faint trash smell, was a clue I needed to unravel. But all I can see is her face; all I can hear is her laugh.

I’ve always felt a strange connection to the stars, one that I have never fully understood. I used to believe that it was simply the night itself that appealed to me. There is something so incredibly compelling about it. It’s not the silence, necessarily, but the way that every breath is amplified; it’s not so much the darkness, but the way that the stars light it up. There is an unparalleled magic to them, to the way that they swirl and writhe and explode of their own accord. Although the moon will orbit for eternity and the stars will eventually fade into submission, it is the latter that I admire the most. I would rather die at the hands of my own power and light than live infinitely off of the nectar of somebody else’s.

I was a passenger in the backseat of our family vehicle. The small bumps in the pavement lulled me to a place of perfect repose. As we looked outside our windows we could see the sky painting a magnificent show for us. The sun was going down, but the heavens were brighter and more astounding than I had ever seen them before. It was as if someone had set the clouds alight with raging wildfires and splashes of pink and purple scattered about. I never wanted it to end, but the sky had other plans. The masterpiece before us began to recede into darkness as the nighttime engulfed the sun and put daytime to

I would lay there in deep thought, if the sun gives us light, and it’s in outer space, then why is there eternal darkness in the night time sky, what did stars looked like up close, do people lived on stars and other planets, how did people breathe in space. These questions would go through my mind as I lay in the grass behind our apartment, at the top of the hill, in the garden street projects. When you lived in the garden street projects you had to have a good imagination, not because things were bad, not in the 70’s, when I was young and didn’t know any better, the garden street projects were the best of times. To go to places that, I couldn’t walk, or bike, I needed a good imagination, so that I could block out all the noise, and all the things that reminded me I was still here on earth, in the garden street projects. Every now and then, when I lay, I would see a fiery ball of light moving fast across the nighttime sky, arching ever so slightly as it took flight in our alien atmosphere. We called them shooting stars, but I suspected they were the remains of comets, or asteroids that the Army shot down, foiling the plans of the aliens trying to destroy our

In the solitude of pitch-black infinite space, “men forgot their passions”-all values were lost, hopes and goals were put on hold, and only darkness existed. A world living in darkness was forced to displace its

A beam of early morning sunlight played on his face. He turned and scooted to another part of the bed in order to avoid waking. Within a few minutes the beam of sunlight had caught up with him again and was shining again directly on his eyelids. He lay there, his head in a fog, rubbed his eyes and stared at the white plastered walls trying to determine where he was and even who he was. The brightness of the room overwhelmed him with a fierce intensity. It was a few minutes before his eyes became accustomed to the light. He entertained his semi-waking mind by tracing patterns of the earthy colors on the tapestry that hung on the wall facing him. He rubbed his hands slowly on the bedsheet, felt a smoothness and said to himself, "This

Clouds hid the stars. The contours of things became hard to distinguish…. I seemed to be floating in pure, abstract blackness” (Martel 118). The darkness and no sight of the moon and stars metaphorically translate into how hopeless Pi feels.

No hypnotic beat Could hope to compete With your gentle hands on me That made magical any melody There was nothing like our bumping knees And your clumsy feet That took an overplayed radio piece And turned it a scintillating symphony I wondered If you could feel the way my heart hammered As I smiled unabashedly into your shoulder Blissful and content as if I never got hurt

The sun dipped lower, painting the sky with an array of pinks, purpules, oranges, and yellows. The slivered moon perched above the clouds which held the promise of a placid, tranquil night. The ripples across the lake had all but diminished, the leaves settling into place.

Saturday Night Light Shadows inhaled the poison light, as a finch crossed my eye path and in the moment seemed suspended before me: its small feet almost baggy beneath knotted plumage. I saw myself traverse the cosmos on a curve of time like the moon’s arrant eating when it is rising; how its glow tangos at last on the eyelids. Settling into the reiteration of evening making this one place the spot where you were. Hope is all the sap that runs downhill following that old path as water might, with its innate grace to become affixed to any one place, as a delicate vine or a ballerina floating on a toe.

A slow red sphere, pulsating with light and energy, rose across the hazy horizon; feeding the once dark and bleak island with colours, sound, and life. It was like an artist’s canvass slowly coming to life, as splashed the surface with colours and hues, and carefully put together his masterpiece. The island suddenly lit up as if someone had suddenly twisted the brightness knob on a television set, and flicked on the volume. The dark and mysterious trees and plants suddenly lit up with radiant joy, and I saw the finer detail of my surroundings in the brightness of the morning sun. As I got up I saw a multitude of ants scurrying about on the dark gnarled root, I gazed deeper into the ants world, staring in fascination at the various dark