"I died for Beauty-but was scarce"

I died for Beauty-but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room-

He questioned softly "Why I failed?"
"For Beauty," I replied-
"And I-for Truth-Themself are One-
We Brethren, are," He said-

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night-
We talked between the Rooms-
Until the Moss had reached our lips-
And covered up-our names-


The poem "I died for Beauty-but was scarce" Emily Dickinson uses simile. Her simile is in the 3rd stanza. The speaker describes her meeting with the man as them being like they are 'kinsmen'. The speaker does so in return after the man says that they are 'brethren'.

Dickinson's central purpose of the poem is dying for a reason and the connection between how the speaker and the man she meets have died. In the second stanza the man states that beauty and truth are one in the same. Dickonson believes that being honest is true beauty. And that being beautiful doesn't mean physically attractive, but ethically and morally attractive (honest). She presents this idea by placing her speaker in one of her main themes of poetry, death.

This poems impacts me by pointing out the true connection between beauty and truth. Before reading this poem, I never considered their relation; however, Emily Dickinson uses her speaker's death to introduce the idea.