Surgeons must be very careful

Surgeons must be very careful

When they take the knife!

Underneath their fine incisions

Stirs the Culprit - Life!
 

The overall understanding that I perceive from this poem is that it is about basically about life. Dickinson's poem tells the reader that they determine or impact their own life and have to proceed the things they do in live carefully. If these actions aren't done, the consequences could be deadly, life threatening, or could predict the outcome of a person's life. This poem closely relates to the poem "The Road Not Taken" due to the life lesson that the reader receives. The metaphors and the personification she uses gives the reader a more serious understanding of how life can turn out. Dickinson inserts life as "Culprit" giving it a criminal upside of what can happen if the reader, who is the surgeon,  doesn't make the right decisions within their live span.


I interpret a sense of ownership from reading the poem because once a bad decision is made, the problem has to be dealt with and determining on how serious the matter is  there might not be any turning back trying to heal the damage that is done.