Comparing and Contrasting Dickinson’s Poems, Because I Could Not Stop for Death and I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died

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Comparing and Contrasting Dickinson’s Poems, Because I Could Not Stop for Death and I Heard a Fly Buzz - When I Died

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10th December, 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. As a young child, she showed a bright intelligence, and was able to create many recognizable writings. Many close friends and relatives in Emily’s life were taken away from her by death. Living a life of simplicity and aloofness, she wrote poetry of great power: questioning the nature of immortality and death. Although her work was influenced by great poets of the time, she published many strong poems herself. Two of Emily Dickinson’s famous poems, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died”, are both about life’s one few certainties, death, and that is where the similarities end.

Although both poems were written by the same poet around the same time, their idea of what lies after death differs. In one of the poems, there appears to be an afterlife, while in the other poem, there is nothing. For example, in her work of, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, Dickinson tells the reader a tale of a woman being taken away by Death. The Death would either take the women to hell or heaven, giving us our first indication of an afterlife. Also in the fifth stanza, Death and the woman make a stop before a house where they see “… The Roof was scarcely visible – The Cornice in the Ground-“; the woman is lying in the soil beneath, where her Soul and Spirits are looking towards the house, representing an afterlife. As the poem proceeds to the sixth stanza, the reader is given a conclusive evidence of the afterlife when the woman revives how it has been centuries since the death has come to visit...

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...ritings. For example, in her work of “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, Dickinson used personification to resemble Death as a person. Also, in her poem of “I Heard a Fly Buzz– When I Died”, she uses “the Windows” (423) as eyes when the woman dies.

Although Emily Dickinson was a private person throughout her life, some critics gave a negative view to her work. For example, the work of “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is dissenting toward the nineteenth century woman. Critics imply that this work of Dickinson had a negative influence on marriage and independent women. They believe the proper place for a woman was beside her husband, but a husbandless woman, according to Dickinson, was uncertain of herself. Although the independent woman has a life, she is literally speaking through a grave. She has been deceived, driven to her death, and has been abandoned.

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