“Shipwreck” Summary

• A ship the speaker once knew was thrown around on the waves. Gusts of wind overpowered the ship, sending it spinning. The ship tried desperately to reach the safety of the morning.

  The boat wobbled over the waves like a staggering drunk. Its sail seemed to stumble, then disappeared into the sea.

  The speaker says goodbye to the ship and its crew, telling them: the ocean's heart is too vast and grand to care about your fate.

“Shipwreck” Themes

• 

  Human Vulnerability and Nature's Indifference

  Through the image of a ship hopelessly lost at sea that sinks despite its crew's best efforts, "Shipwreck" explores the idea that human beings are at the mercy of forces beyond their control. For all its solidity, the ship can't withstand the onslaught of the storm. Human efforts, likewise, are no match for the sheer power and indifference of the elements.

  The "brig" (or ship) is helpless in the teeth of a storm at sea. The speaker describes the ship as "little": though it’s not really that small, it’s still dwarfed by the vastness of the ocean. And the ship and its crew are overpowered not just by the ocean’s scale, but its force. Overtaken by the “blast” of a storm, the ship can only “sp[in] and sp[in],” out of control; the crew's efforts to steer the vessel only highlight how little they can do.

  While the speaker sympathizes with the helpless boat and its crew, nature doesn't. As the speaker puts it, the ocean's heart is "too smooth" and "too blue" to "break" for the ship and its crew. In other words, it's too vast, too powerful, too oceanic to make exceptions by rescuing "a little brig" from the storm or to care when the ship goes under. The ocean swallows up the "brig" without a second thought. The natural world, this disaster suggests, makes no concessions to human vulnerability. The poem thus reminds the reader that humanity is always at the mercy of forces beyond its control.

  Readers might also interpret the ocean’s indifferent cruelty as a broader symbol of other truths about the human experience. The storm that sinks the ship could be read as an image of any kind of disaster, from heartbreak to death; the indifferent ocean might reflect an indifferent universe that doesn’t even blink at humanity’s troubles.

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Shipwreck”

• Lines 1-5

  It tossed and tossed,—
  A little brig I knew,—
  O'ertook by blast,
  It spun and spun,
  And groped delirious, for morn.

  The opening stanza of "Shipwreck" portrays a ship battling for survival against a storm. It's not clear what ship this is, who is on board, or where and when the shipwreck takes place. As the speaker puts it, this is just the tale of a "little brig I knew." That vagueness gives the poem a mysterious quality, suggesting that the ship could represent something beyond itself.

  A "brig" is a square-rigged sailing ship with two masts. It's not the biggest type of ship, but it's not small either! It's telling, then, that the speaker calls this boat "little," using delicate /ih/ assonance ("little brig") that sounds light and fragile. Set against the mighty power of the sea and the storm, the boat appears tiny and ineffectual. Humankind can build strong, powerful objects, this poem will suggest, but nature always maintains the upper hand.

  Lines 3-5 further paint the scene. The ship is "O'ertook by blast"—in other words, overwhelmed by a ferocious storm. The speaker conjures the power of that storm through repetitions in lines 1 and 4:

  It tossed and tossed,

  [...]

  It spun and spun,

  The parallelism and diacope here make it clear that the ship has lost control—or, more accurately, that the crew has lost control of the ship, heightening an atmosphere of drama and chaos.

  Overwhelmed by the storm, the speaker says, the ship "groped delirious for morn," desperately searching for a dawn it will never reach. This personification captures a very human feeling of helpless longing for safety: the groping ship starts to feel more and more like a symbol for humanity's struggles in the face of terrible troubles.

  The rhythms of this stanza are unpredictable The meter is generally iambic (that is, it uses iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm, as in "It tossed"). But the lines switch between dimeter (lines of two iambs, as in lines 1, 3, and 4), trimeter (lines of three iambs, as in line 2), and tetrameter (lines of five iambs, as in line 5). This lurching rhythm mirrors the turmoil of the storm. Like the ship, the poem is thrown this way and that, denied the chance to settle into a calmer flow.

• Lines 6-9

  It slipped and slipped,
  As one that drunken stepped;
  Its white foot tripped,
  Then dropped from sight.

  

  

  

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• Lines 10-13

  Ah, brig, good-night
  To crew and you;
  The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue,
  To break for you.

  

  

  

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“Shipwreck” Symbols

• 

  The Brig

  The "little brig" serves as a symbol of humanity itself, and in particular humanity's efforts to stay afloat in a chaotic, dangerous world.

  Ships need to be well-made and solid to be seaworthy. They seem to represent mastery over the elements. But every now and then, nature reminds humanity who's boss. Caught in a wild storm, the brig suddenly seems "little." It's "tossed and tossed [...] spun and spun" by the storm, its helplessness symbolizing humanity's inability to be the true master of its own destiny.

  The ship's inability to withstand the storm highlights humanity's ultimate helplessness against the forces of nature and, more broadly, against the indifference of the vast, mysterious universe.

  • See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“Shipwreck” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Assonance

  "Shipwreck" uses assonance to make its images more vivid.

  In line 2, for example, the speaker describes the boat as a "little brig." That quick, light /i/ vowel helps to emphasize the boat's smallness set against the vast backdrop of the ocean and the overwhelming power of the storm. If the line instead read "little boat," say, the effect just wouldn't be the same!

  The same sound reappears in line 6:

  It slipped and slipped,

  Here, the /i/ quickens the line, mimicking the acceleration that comes with slipping and falling.

  The poem really dials up the effect in lines 11-12:

  Ah, brig, good-night
  To crew and you;
  The ocean's heart too smooth, too blue,

  All those /oo/ sounds in a row smooth the line out, emphasizing the image of a calm ocean's vast, featureless surface. This supports the image of the ocean's smooth, blue heart, which is too indifferent to "break"—that is, to feel—for the brig and its crew.

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• Personification

  

  

  

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• Repetition

  

  

  

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“Shipwreck” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Brig
• O'ertook
• Blast
• Groped delirious
• Morn
• Drunken stepped

• A small sailing ship with two masts.

  • See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Shipwreck”

• Form

  "Shipwreck" divides its 13 lines into one cinquain (a five-line stanza) and two quatrains (four-line stanzas), both typical stanza forms in Dickinson's poetry.

  The shift from quintain to quatrain, together with the poem's erratic rhyme scheme and meter, helps to convey the ship's chaotic, doomed attempts to escape the storm and find safety. The poem also uses intense repetitions ("It tossed and tossed [...] It spun and spun [...] It slipped and slipped") to present the brig's experience on the ocean as all the more overwhelming.

• Meter

  "Shipwreck" uses a variety of iambic meters. Iambs are metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm. Most lines in the poem are written in iambic dimeter, meaning they have two iambs, as in line 1:

  It tossed | and tossed,—

  These short, stubby lines evoke the smallness of the brig against the vast backdrop of the ocean.

  Other lines are longer, using trimeter (three metrical feet) or tetrameter (four), as in lines 2 and 5:

  A litt- | le brig | I knew,—
  [...]
  And groped | deli- | rious, | for morn.

  These unpredictable line lengths convey the chaos of the storm.

  Note, too, how tetrameter creates an impression of a smooth, vast, unbroken surface in line 12:

  The o-| cean's heart | too smooth, | too blue,

  This longer, smoother line supports the image of the ocean refusing to "break" its heart—that is, to feel any pity whatsoever—for the brig.

• Rhyme Scheme

  The poem's rhyme scheme, like the rest of its form, is unpredictable, running like this:

  ABACC DDDE EFFF

  Apart from the last three F rhymes, these are all imperfect slant rhymes—a classic trait of Dickinson's work. The lack of organized scheme conveys the storm's wildness and the ship's helplessness. It's as though the rhymes, like the ship, have been picked up and shaken, left to fall randomly.

“Shipwreck” Speaker

• Like most (but not all) Dickinson poems, "Shipwreck" has a first-person speaker. It's hard to say much about this speaker, though; all the reader learns about them is that they feel an emotional affinity with the doomed brig and its crew.

  The poem builds this connection in lines 2, 10 and 11:

  A little brig I knew,—
  [...]
  Ah, brig, good-night
  To crew and you;

  These intimate lines make it sound almost as if the brig were an old friend of the speaker's. This empathetic stance suggests the speaker may be using the ship as a lens through which to explore a shared human plight: helplessness in the face of what often feels like an indifferent universe.

“Shipwreck” Setting

• The poem describes the fate of a "little brig" which sinks in a storm, but offers no specifics in terms of location or time. This lends the poem mystery and gives the brig symbolic weight: this isn't really a poem about any one shipwreck, but about human helplessness more generally.

  All the action takes place in the past tense: by the time the speaker is telling this story, the ship's fate is already sealed. Despite this, the poem vividly places the reader in the midst of the crew's attempts to save themselves as the ocean spins them around like a toy.

  Ultimately, the water just swallows them up, the "ocean's heart" refusing to break for this "little brig." In describing the ocean's heart as "smooth" and "blue," the poem powerfully evokes nature's indifference towards humanity.

Literary and Historical Context of “Shipwreck”

Literary Context

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) published almost nothing during her lifetime, and after 1865 she rarely even left her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts. But from within her circumscribed world, she explored the heights and depths of human experience through groundbreaking poetry.

No one else sounds quite like Dickinson. Her poems use simple, folky forms—ballad stanzas, for instance—to explore profound philosophical questions, passionate loves, and the mysteries of nature.

While Dickinson didn't get too involved in the literary world of her time, she was still part of a swell of 19th-century American innovation. Her contemporary Walt Whitman (who became as famous as Dickinson was obscure) was also developing an unprecedented and unique poetic voice, and the Transcendentalists (like Emerson and Thoreau) shared her deep belief in the spiritual power of nature. Dickinson herself was inspired by English writers like William Wordsworth and Charlotte Brontë, whose works similarly found paths through the everyday world into the sublime, terrifying, and astonishing.

After Dickinson died, her sister Lavinia discovered a trunk of nearly 1,800 secret poems squirreled away in a bedroom and began (after a great deal of family drama) to publish them. This poem, likely written in the 1860s, finally appeared in print some thirty years later in Poems (1896). Released into the world at last, Dickinson's poetry became internationally famous and beloved. Her work and her life story still influence all kinds of artists.

Historical Context

Dickinson's most active writing years coincided with one of the most tumultuous times in American history: the Civil War (1861–1865). However, Dickinson rarely addressed the political world directly in her poetry, preferring either to write about her immediate surroundings or to take a much wider philosophical perspective.

Dickinson grew up in a religious community (her father was a noted minister) and came of age during the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening. Dickinson herself was swept up by this religious movement for a time. Though she ultimately questioned and moved away from organized religion, her poems remain preoccupied with questions of faith and doubt. Many express wonder about the afterlife or speculate on what it's like to meet God—if that's indeed what happens when people die, which Dickinson wasn't always sure of. In this poem, the brig's plight arguably displays humanity at the mercy of greater, uncontrollable forces, the ocean perhaps standing in for the vast unknowable cosmos.

More “Shipwreck” Resources

• External Resources

  • The Emily Dickinson Museum — Visit the website of the Emily Dickinson Museum to find a detailed overview of the poet's life and work. 

  • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "Shipwreck."

  • Emily Dickinson Archive — Visit the Emily Dickinson Archive to see images of Dickinson's manuscripts (including this poem) and learn about how they were discovered and published.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson

  • A Bird, came down the Walk

  • After great pain, a formal feeling comes –

  • A Light exists in Spring

  • A Murmur in the Trees—to note—

  • A narrow Fellow in the Grass

  • An awful Tempest mashed the air—

  • As imperceptibly as grief

  • A still—Volcano—Life—

  • A Word dropped careless on a Page

  • Because I could not stop for Death —

  • Before I got my eye put out

  • Fame is a fickle food

  • Hope is the thing with feathers

  • I cannot live with You –

  • I cautious, scanned my little life

  • I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to—

  • I did not reach Thee

  • I died for Beauty—but was scarce

  • I dreaded that first Robin, so

  • I dwell in Possibility –

  • I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

  • If I can stop one heart from breaking

  • I had been hungry, all the Years

  • I have a Bird in spring

  • I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -

  • I like a look of Agony

  • I like to see it lap the Miles

  • I measure every Grief I meet

  • I’m Nobody! Who are you?

  • I started Early — Took my Dog —

  • I taste a liquor never brewed

  • It was not Death, for I stood up

  • I—Years—had been—from Home—

  • Like Rain it sounded till it curved

  • Much Madness is divinest Sense -

  • My life closed twice before its close

  • My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun

  • Nature is what we see

  • One need not be a Chamber — to be Haunted

  • Publication — is the Auction

  • Safe in their Alabaster Chambers

  • Success is counted sweetest

  • Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

  • The Brain—is wider than the Sky—

  • The Bustle in a House

  • The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants

  • There came a Wind like a Bugle

  • There is no Frigate like a Book

  • There's a certain Slant of light

  • There's been a Death, in the Opposite House

  • The saddest noise, the sweetest noise

  • The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean

  • The Soul has bandaged moments

  • The Soul selects her own Society

  • The Wind – tapped like a tired Man –

  • They shut me up in Prose –

  • This is my letter to the world

  • This World is not Conclusion

  • 'Twas the old—road—through pain—

  • We grow accustomed to the Dark

  • What mystery pervades a well!

  • Whose cheek is this?

  • Wild nights - Wild nights!