Most poets that address the concepts of death use a unique, individual, and stylistic approach common to only his/her own writing. In "'Twas Warm At First Like Us," Emily Dickinson uses several poetic devices to dwell into a unique subtopic of death: the physical changes that the body undergoes shortly after this occurrence. Cleverly using diction, tone, and imagery, she tackles the event in stages and suggests an overall theme concerning the perception of death to the human mind.
             Dickinson uses the first stanza, specifically the first line, to set up the basic scene in which the process of death modifies as the poem moves along. The "it" she uses, stemming from the contraction "'Twas," contrasts with "us." This implies that the body has, not too long ago, lost its life and consequently, can no longer be classified as a he or a she. After the death, the body is still warm until the personification of the physical changes that occur after death begin to take place. The speaker refers to these physical changes creeping, "like frost upon a glass." Using creeping to describe these changes along with concentrating on her viewpoint of the lowering of the person's status, the speaker displays a slightly horrified tone. Although the body is dead, the speaker still gives it the sense of sight, which is soon blurred by the frost. "Chill" and "frost" are minor degree of coldness and freezing respectively that the speaker initially uses to describe the process the physical changing. These words are modified to greater degrees as the poem moves along.
             The second stanza concerns both the lost of body warmth and of expression on the face. Dickinson uses specific parts of the body such as the forehead, the fingers, and the eyes when describing the dehumanizing process. Using specific parts instead of addressing the body as a whole, the speaker dis...