Tell all the Truth but tell it slant

In Emily Dickinson’s “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant,” she uses a lot of language relating to electricity such as circuit, light, bright and lightning. Using such words, I think she is trying to express that the truth can be very shocking. She says “too bright for our infirm delight,” basically saying that what we find happiness is can be unpredictable and that the truth can surprise us, not always in a good way. She states how when lightning is explained to children in a “kind” manner, how they are eased into the concept. We are basically all the “children” who need to be eased into the truths in our lives. The last two lines say how we cannot face the truth (because it is too harsh) in basically the same way that we cannot look directly into the sun. We have to be introduced to the truth gradually, or it will become too much for us.