The Dashes

In the poem “I dwell in possibility” Emily Dickinson has used dashes many times to convey the meaning of the poem. When I was reading the poem, I felt like the dashes were helping set up the tone of the poem. In some places the dashes are separating things and at some places the dashes are connecting things.
In the first eight lines of the poem, the dashes are used to connect different things. “A fairer House than prose--” the dashes in this line are used to connect everything that is said after this line. The poet is talking about the house and with the use of the dashes, she list several important things about the house. Another thing that I have noticed is that, the dashes are used only at places with important connection. The pattern that I have found is that the dashes are also used for continuation of a sentence.
Later on in the poem, the dashes are used to separate things. There is a Volta in the poem at line 9. Starting from line 9, the poet starts talking about something else. The poet is trying to say many things in few words. There is no connection between those words, therefore the dashes are used to separate the meanings. For example, “For occupation--This--” These two words have no connection with each other. “This--” is not even in a complete sentence and the dashes over here are used for continuation. The last two lines in the poem are very meaningful. There are no dashes used in them until the end. This tells us that these two lines have a connection between them which the poet did not break by using the dashes. The pattern of continuation is also found at the end of the poem, which could also mean that the poem is not ended yet and there is still a lot more to say.