Emily Dickinson was known to be one of the best poets in the 19th century as she displayed a unique writing style discussing her experiences and beliefs. Throughout her life, she wrote over one thousand poems with many recurring themes, all tied to religion, nature, and death. Even though the theme of the afterlife is not one of her major topic she wrote about, Dickinson somehow found a way to express her interest in eternity. Poems 160 and 271 show Dickinson portraying a narrator’s desire to live in the afterlife for eternity while questioning if true happiness can be found in that world.
In poem 160, Emily Dickinson introduces the idea of eternity through someone else’s voice. When talking about the world of the dead, people usually fear the idea of this unknown land rather than wishing to be
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Poem 271 shows the reason for the narrator’s ambition when Dickinson writes, “-that it return- / Eternity – until - / I pondered how the bliss would look.” She uses a delicate word, “bliss”, which can identify as a ‘perfect happiness’ or ‘great joy’ to enlarge the question if they can truly be happy in the afterworld. Going to eternity is the only way they can find out if this true happiness exists. In the same stanza, Dickinson once again mentions the narrator’s interests to reach eternity when she speaks of “Eternity –until-.” While Emily quickly mentions the narrator’s desire, the narrator keeps questioning if eternity really contain this true happiness. “And would it feels as big - / When I could take it in my hand.” Not only is the narrator thinking about what this happiness looks like, but also how it would feel. The word “as” in the sentence make it seem like the narrator already made up what they think is the definition of ‘true happiness’. Now they are hoping the happiness in eternity will look and feel the same if it does
The explanation of the speaker’s death is shown in this poem. A day that happened many centuries ago and now is being told in the afterlife. In this poem Emily Dickinson tells us about life. The poem says that there is a place after death, which would explain as to why she was so calm about all that has happened. She implies that death is not the end, but only the beginning.
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.
Dickinson’s poem has no life after death; her poem speaks of the finality of death. Compared to Whitman’s poem there is no recycling of life, only the blinding dark and loss of self. Dickinson’s poem ends with the line, “And then the Windows failed-and then I could not see-“(Dickinson 1248). This line emphasizes Dickinson’s point of there being no afterlife. Her grim tone is well defined throughout her poem as the speaker of the poem lies in their death bed, while others wait with breaths held in for the speaker to die. The tone of Dickinson’s poem carries a gruesome burden of weight in how death is inescapable and leaves the reader with a dark cloud over their heads of the inevitability of it all. The speaker of the poem awaits their death as “The Eyes around-had wrung them dry-And Breaths were gathering firm” (Dickinson 1248). Her poem steadily maintains her morbid tone throughout her writing, emphasizing her points and interpretation of death. Dickinson views death as the finale of life. She believes there is nothing left to be fulfilled
There is probably no one, among people, who has not considered death as a subject to think about or the events, people, and spirits that they would face after death. Also, since we were little kids, we were asking our parents what death is and what is going to happen after we die. People have always linked death with fear, darkness, depression, and other negative feelings, but not with Emily Dickinson, a reclusive poet from Massachusetts who was obsessed with death and dying in her tons of writings. She writes “Because I could not stop for Death” and in this particular poem she delivers a really different idea of death and the life after death. In the purpose of doing that, the speaker encounters death, which was personalized to be in the form of a gentleman suitor who comes to pick her up with his horse-drawn carriage for a unique death date that will last forever.
In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” she uses the structure of her poem and rhetoric as concrete representation of her abstract beliefs about death to comfort and encourage readers into accepting Death when He comes. The underlying theme that can be extracted from this poem is that death is just a new beginning. Dickinson deftly reassures her readers of this with innovative organization and management, life-like rhyme and rhythm, subtle but meaningful use of symbolism, and ironic metaphors.
In Emily Dickinson's poem, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, death is personified in an unusual way. Instead of the expected dark, evil, Grim-reaper depiction of death, Dickinson portrayed him as more of a gentleman. Death became a character, able to carry out a human action, who “kindly stopped” (2) for the speaker, since she could not stop for him. He's described as a man who “knew no haste” (5), a courteous fellow. Another example of personification is when we discover that Immortality has decided to tag along for the carriage ride, as Death and Immortality seemingly go hand in hand. Lastly, Dickinson utilized personification, when she wrote, “We passed the setting sun. / Or rather, he passed us” (12-13). The sun is called a he instead of an it, and is reported as being able to pass the speaker and Death. Dickinson's use of this literary device, especially the personification of death, leads the reader to take a different approach in the way they think about the afterlife: a calmer, more accepting view of one's passing to whatever lies beyond the grave.
The speaker in this poem is overwhelmed by all the tasks, she does, which use up all her time; as a result, the speaker wants to relax and have fun in her life. However; it is not possible so the speaker finds death as her last resort. So when Death finally comes; she gladly enters his “carriage“ as she was weary of her daily life. When they arrive at her final resting place, the burial ground, she realizes it has been centuries since her death and the horses have been walking to eternity. This tells the reader Emily Dickinson believes in afterlife, and is probably looking forward to it.
Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both parallel and opposing views on death.
Emily Dickinson had a fascination with death and mortality throughout her life as a writer. She wrote many poems that discussed what it means not only to die, but to be dead. According to personal letters, Dickinson seems to have remained agnostic about the existence of life after death. In a letter written to Mrs. J. G. Holland, Emily implied that the presence of death alone is what makes people feel the need for heaven: “If roses had not faded, and frosts had never come, and one had not fallen here and there whom I could not waken, there were no need of other Heaven than the one below.” (Bianchi 83). Even though she was not particularly religious, she was still drawn to the mystery of the afterlife. Her poetry is often contemplative of the effect or tone that death creates, such as the silence, decay, and feeling of hopelessness. In the poem “I died for beauty,” Dickinson expresses the effect that death has on one's identity and ability to impact the world for his or her ideals.
Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest woman poets. She left us with numerous works that show us her secluded world. Like other major artists of nineteenth-century American introspection such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville, Dickinson makes poetic use of her vacillations between doubt and faith. The style of her first efforts was fairly conventional, but after years of practice she began to give room for experiments. Often written in the meter of hymns, her poems dealt not only with issues of death, faith and immortality, but with nature, domesticity, and the power and limits of language.
Emily Dickinson became legendary for her preoccupation with death. All her poems contain stanzas focusing on loss or loneliness, but the most striking ones talk particularly about death, specifically her own death and her own afterlife. Her fascination with the morose gives her poems a rare quality, and gives us insight into a mind we know very little about. What we do know is that Dickinson’s father left her a small amount of money when she was young. This allowed her to spend her time writing and lamenting, instead of seeking out a husband or a profession. Eventually, she limited her outside activities to going to church. In her early twenties, she began prayed and worshipped on her own. This final step to total seclusion clearly fueled her obsession with death, and with investigating the idea of an afterlife. In “Because I could not stop for Death”, Dickinson rides in a carriage with the personification of Death, showing the constant presence of death in her life. Because it has become so familiar, death is no longer a frightening presence, but a comforting companion. Despite this, Dickinson is still not above fear, showing that nothing is static and even the most resolute person is truly sure of anything. This point is further proven in “I heard a Fly buzz”, where a fly disrupts the last moment of Dickinson’s life. The fly is a symbol of death, and of uncertainty, because though it represents something certain—her impending death—it flies around unsure with a “stumbling buzz”. This again illustrates the changing nature of life, and even death. “This World is not Conclusion” is Dickinson’s swan song on the subject of afterlife. She confirms all her previous statements, but in a more r...
Life and death are but trails to eternity and are seen less important when viewed in the framework of eternity. Emily Dickinson’s poem Death is a gentleman taking a woman out for a drive.” Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me” (Dickinson 1-2). Emily describes being a busy woman who is caught up in everyday situations.
In my opinion, Emily Dickinson as a transcendentalist used her poetry to describe the process of transcendental meditation, particularly the meditation of death. In this poem she tries to allow us to expierience our true nature by entering directly into our conscious. The poem is a deep seeking of the nature of death, the death that is a process of expansion and transformation from solidarity to a spaciousness.
In Conclusion, death is seen for both a new expedition. Dickinson’s voyage is going on a carriage ride with Death and Immortality guiding her to “eternity”. Tennyson’s adventure however is represented through crossing the sandbar into the large ocean. These poems are both reassuring and comforting for the readers to help themselves understand that death should not be feared but rather to think of death as a new beginning rather than an ending.
Throughout Emily Dickinson’s poetry there is a reoccurring theme of death and immortality. The theme of death is further separated into two major categories including the curiosity Dickinson held of the process of dying and the feelings accompanied with it and the reaction to the death of a loved one. Two of Dickinson’s many poems that contain a theme of death include: “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” and “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”