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Theme of death in dickinsons poems
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A funeral is usually seen as a formal event meaning there will normally be order and control with very minimal chaos. The funeral Dickinson describes in the poem is far from a “normal” funeral. The control and order of a funeral contrast the chaos within the speaker’s mind. Also, a funeral marks a passing from one state to another, life to death. This parallels with the passing in the speaker’s life, from sanity to insanity. She is an observer of the funeral and a participant. This tells the readers that there is a divide in the Self of the speaker. By the end of the poem, Self is destroyed and shattered. On the other hand, funerals can also be viewed as celebrations of one’s life. This can signify the freedom of the speaker’s freedom as it
“goes on”. The mourners also act as a metaphor; they signify and express the speaker’s pain. Their treading and pacing back and forth signifies the speakers decline into insanity. The physical acts of treading in her head are pushing her down. The speaker’s source of reasoning goes “numb” as the beating and treading continue, this results in further deterioration of the speaker’s mind and body. The repetition of the ‘treading treading’ evokes the hammering and turbulence within the speaker’s head.
He also made us experience the awe and misery of the mother by describing her “trembling steps” when she went to read. the letter, her “sickly white face and dull in the head”. In addition to her state after her son’s death, she was “presently drest in. black”, “her meals untouched”, “fitfully sleeping often waking” and “sleeping”. her “deep longing.to be with her dead son”. Dickinson uses imaginative and figurative language.
Dickinson's The Last Night that She Lived presents a meditation on the reaction of the speaker and those with her while they are confronted with the death of a female friend. Strangely, in dealing with the subject of death, Dickinson steers away from the metaphysical aspect of such a heavy situation and remains firmly anchored in the tangible world. The speaker makes no references to God or the afterlife, and her allusions to nature are fleeting. The poem is anything but an attempted justification of the death of her friend, rather it is resembles a catalogue of the human responses of those who remain in the earthly realm after the death of a loved one.
“Death, the end of life: the time when someone or something dies” (Merriam-Webster, 2014). The definition of death is quite simple, the end of life is inescapable. I chose to write about death and impermanence because it is something we all must inevitably face. People often deal with death in a number of different ways. Although it is something that we must eventually face, it can be hard to come to terms with because the idea can be hard to grasp. Some of us fear it, others are able to accept it, either way we all must eventually face it. In this essay I will look at two different literary works about death and impermanence and compare and contrast the different elements of the point of view, theme, setting, and symbolism. The comparison of these particular works will offer a deeper look into words written by the authors and the feelings that they experiencing at that particular time.
Dickinson 's poem uses poetic devices of personification to represent death, she represents death as if it were a living being. Dickinson 's capitalization of the word “DEATH”, causes us to see death as a name, in turn it becomes noun, a person, and a being, rather than what it truly is, which is the culminating even of human life. The most notable use of this, is seen in the very first few lines of the poem when Dickinson says “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me”. In her poem Dickinson makes death her companion, as it is the person who is accompanying her to her grave. She states that death kindly stopped for her and she even goes as far as to give death the human ability to stop and pick her up. The occasion of death through Dickinson use of personification makes it seem like an interaction between two living beings and as a result the poem takes on a thoughtful and light hearted tone. The humanization of death makes the experience more acceptable and less strange, death takes on a known, familiar, recognizable form which in turn makes the experience more relatable. As the poem
The speaker connects a symbol of death with her brain and says her “mind is going numb,” which implies that a part of her is dying (Dickinson 8). At the end of the poem, the speaker also states “a plank in reason broke / and I dropped down and down” (Dickinson 17-18). The statement of an interruption of logic followed by her descent is a hopeless ending that shows the speaker is losing her rationality and declining mentally. Dickinson portrays a speaker who is dying physcologically and thus is becoming mad. In addition, “I Felt a Funeral,” characterizes death as forcefully acting upon the speaker beyond her control, much like it is in her poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” In the former, Dickinson does not demonstrate the funeral and the downturn as stoppable or preventable, and in the latter she unsuccessfully avoids death. The opening lines “Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me” shows the speaker did not want to give up her earthly life (Dickinson 1-2). Though the figure of death treated her politely, it is clear that the presence of death was unavoidable, as it was in the previous poem.
In the beginning of the poem, Dickinson writes, "Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me." Not only does Dickinson portray death as a man, but she does so in a way that the man is not perceived in a negative way. She writes as if the man is her lover, kindly stopping in a way as if he was to suit her. Death is not our enemy, but instead is our companion. In the next two lines, in lines three and four, Dickinson then uses a metaphor to compare a carriage to death.... ...
In Emily Dickinson’s poem #280, “I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain”, she compares her state of depression and madness with a funeral. In a predominant male society, Dickinson feels trapped in a coffin, where she is unable to make any decisions on her own. The women’s role in society during her time was to be a good “Angel of the House”, to be a good housewife. This captivity is the cause of her depression, which in turn causes her to slowly lose her sense of self. The “Mourners” seem to be the majority of society who demands her to take up her part in society as a respectable young woman. This peer pressure seems to draw her in:
In the poem "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain" Emily Dickinson exposes a person's intense anguish and suffering as they sink into a state of extreme madness. The poem is a carefully constructed analysis of the speaker's own mental experience. Dickinson uses the image of a funeral-service to symbolize the death of the speaker's sanity. The poem is terrifying for the reader as it depicts a realization of the collapse of one's mental stability, which is horrifying for most. The reader experiences the horror of the speaker's descending madness as the speaker's mind disintegrates and loses its grasp on reality. "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," by Emily Dickinson creates an illusion of a mind becoming unstable by expressing the speaker's pain, describing her irrationality, and the speaker tragically ending her existence.
Imagery is a big component to most works of poetry. Authors strive to achieve a certain image for the reader to paint in their mind. Dickinson tries to paint a picture of ?death? in her own words. Thomas A. Johnson, an interpretive author of Dickinson's work, says that ?In 1863 Death came into full statue as a person. ?Because I could not stop for Death? is a superlative achievement wherein Death becomes one of the greatest characters of literature? (Johnson). Dickinson's picture to the audience is created by making ?Death? an actual character in the poem. By her constantly calling death either ?his? or ?he,? she denotes a specific person and gender. Dickinson also compares ?Death? to having the same human qualities as the other character in the poem. She has ?Death? physically arriving and taking the other character in the carriage with him. In the poem, Dickinson shows the reader her interpretation of what this person is going through as they are dying and being taken away by ?Death?. Dickinson gives images such as ?The Dews drew quivering and chill --? and ?A Swelling of the Ground --? (14, 18). In both of these lines, Dickinson has the reader conjure up subtle images of death. The ?quivering an chill? brings to the reader's mind of death being ...
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...
This poem is very interesting in many aspects because it reminds me of a person that I use to know. In my life I have met people just like Emily Dickinson who were mentally depressed and very unsociable. In this poem it shows how unstable her mind was in words that she wrote in her poems. I do not want people to get me wrong she was a very smart woman it was said that she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, it also said that she was one of the best poets of all times. I do not understand were she went wrong because she lived a normal childhood in which she was very bright, witty, friendly to people, she had friends, and she went to parties. So where did she go wrong? By her early 30's she began to separate herself from everyone, even the people who she obviously loved had to speak with her from the other side of a closed door. In her life it was that she was in love with some man who died this maybe her for become very depressed. Emily Dickinson was very suicidal (meaning she tried to kill her many times, but was afraid of what it would be like).
Dickinson’s “How many times these low feet staggered-” and “The Bustle in a House” both have the theme of death in common. However, each poem addresses a different perspective of death; one focuses on the deceased while the other focuses on those the dead leave behind. Each deals with death as a means to an end. In the case of the first poem, death is a way to escape life. In the case of the second, death is a force acting against the relationship of the speaker and the deceased.
While Whitman departs from the emotional side of death and celebrates mortality’s renewable nature, Dickinson looks at all aspects of death to show that dying and watching loved ones die is anguishing, yet some relief may be found. Throughout the poem, Song of Myself, Whitman shows that there is no need to fear death. He celebrates it by seeing the beauty in one person’s body decay actually becoming part of the larger world: “I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and/the end,/But I do not talk of the beginning or the end”
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.”
In the poem we see a recurrent theme from Dickinson and that theme is death. We receive a different view of death this time around as a being that is both kind and comforting. Using literary elements such as rhythm, imagery, figures of speech, and symbolism, we are given an insightful view into the passage of the narrator. In Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death", we have the theme of death, not as something to be feared, but as a peaceful journey to eternity.