Emily Dickinson may have had a very developed sense of style and a very eloquent way of writing poetry, but she was certainly confused on the subject of death, for in over a range of different poems, her views are either confused, pessimistic, positive, or romantic.
Though many people fear death, Emily Dickinson sometimes expressed in her poems that she does not, and that she sees it as a place of passivity and minimal fear or happiness. According to Jerome Loving, the Emily Dickinson saw the dead as just dead, just casual subjects of time who have achieved the fate meant for all people (Loving 30). In “I Heard a Fly Buzz –When I Died—,” Dickinson has no emotion, even as she lies on her deathbed, surrounded by her loved ones in her last moments.
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Though the people surrounding her had “wrung [their eyes] dry” with tears for her and their “[breaths] were gathering firm” in an attempt to catch said breath from their morning, the person whose life is about to end focuses on a tiny fly buzzing about the room (Dickinson). The whole process of signing her will and her little baubles away is synonymous with, say, giving out a loan. This nonchalance is perhaps because this time she has just before she dies is a “[stillness] in the room/ between the heaves of storm” the first heave being life and the second being whatever came after death (Dickinson). The stillness is when nothing matters but the slowly fading song of a fly buzzing. In “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” Emily Dickinson also included some elements that relate to how passive she thought death really was.
At first, she explained that she could not make herself to available for death, so death had to present himself to her, in a carriage nonetheless. She was so unbelievably busy with her life that she would not slow down, but despite her life being so busy and so full of tasks to complete, she not once describes even a moment’s hesitation at going with death. Perhaps she is easily seduced by the idea of death; perhaps she simply does not care about dying. Getting in the carriage with death is no bigger a deal than getting in the carriage with her father. As she sits in the carriage, she sees a school, children having fun, and beautiful facets from nature such as fields of grain. As the poem continues, her tone does not change, but the objects and places she is describing become further and further away, solidifying what Jack L. Capps explains as the showing of death being a significant theme that she does not mind leaving the aforementioned school and children playing for. Though the objects seem distant eventually and the sunset, Dickinson does not seem to care that she is …show more content…
dead. Despite the passive nature to death that she displayed in some cases, Dickinson also saw death as a positive experience and even as a gift, sometimes romanticizing it. In “Joy in Death,” she implies that death is an honor, and she feels enlightened by death. Emily Dickinson’s religion bears a brunt of “stubborn skepticism sufficiently [in her will to] ‘accept Christ,’” but she abandons her questioning to certain aspects of religion for her belief in God and Heaven (McNaughton 205). Ruth F. McNaughton elaborates in her analysis of Emily Dickinson that through all of the questioning, God is always a respected idea in her poetry (McNaughton 203). In “Joy in Death,” Dickinson takes almost a reprimanding tone to the slow, mournful air around her by heavily clanging bells and sad faces over a death. According to her, if the explanation of mourning ceremonies is that “[a] soul has gone to God,” there should be whoops and laughter and celebration with jingling bells replacing the glum bells (Dickinson). To go to heaven and to be claimed by God is a blessing and an honor, not an event in which moping is allowed. A poem closely related to “Joy in Death” is “The Bustle in the House.” Here, Emily Dickinson’s writing also indulges readers in a somber explanation of how upset people are over death. She incorporates a play on the phrase “[morning] after death,” for despite meaning the actual morning after someone dies, she also means to give a hint of the baggage and sadness the word mourning carries with it as a reason for and as a lead into the following lines, which say that the morning after death is a very solemn time. This whole sad morning after death creates a bustle in the house of people grieving and trying to get tasks like the funeral out of the way. However, Dickinson analyzed the bustle created by this death from the outside, saying that the people hurrying about would close themselves off and hide their love, not giving it out for fear that someone else with a piece of their heart may also pass to “the tyrant death” and leave them with more reason to bustle (McNaughton 203). The reason that Dickinson said that this love would stay hidden until eternity is because contrary to Eliza Richards, she does not only see things from a negated perspective, and she believes that death is a liberator, especially in the case of the people who are so affected by the death in this poem. Another poem of Dickinson’s that is closely related to “The Bustle in the House”, “A Coffin--is a Small Domain,” brings to light that although being buried and in a coffin should restrict a person, death and eternity do not necessarily restrict you in anyway, and that every negative idea a living person has about death can be turned into a positive.
People generally think of the grave as a tight, constricted area in which one barely has wiggle room, but Dickinson said that the grave is “ampler than the [sun],” meaning she is more unrestricted in eternity, which is where many of her poems lead after death (Dickinson). This poem also addresses how she felt while she was alive on a wide and expanding “diminishing plane,” where she not only suffered morbidly, in the educated opinion of Rebecca Peterson, because of her plain looks, but also where she did not have the burdens of the unknown, like her questions about religion and even death itself (Peterson 75). Most likely because of the restricted and reserved way she lived her life, Emily Dickinson felt that death would come as a reliever of her questions and her failure to adapt to a society she herself called a “failing ratio,” thus explaining why a coffin that would lock up her body would leave her free in eternity (Loving 17). Both this poem and “The Bustle in the House” address life on earth, whether it be because of pain or one’s position in society, having restrictors for everyone, no matter if that person is a wife who
lost her husband or a young teenager who does not fit into a conformist society, and that death loosens that burden. Death does work as a form of freedom as “The Bustle in the House” and “A Coffin—is a Small Domain—,” but it also is a step towards a place that is better than the life one gets so carried away working hard in. In one of Dickinson’s most famous poems, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” there are influences of the narrator’s passiveness to death when it comes, but there are also examples of death coming as a positive phenomenon. After death whisks Dickinson away from life in a carriage, he goes very slowly. The Dickinson previously implied that the narrator is used to working and keeping very busy, but because death moves so very slowly, Dickinson loses the relaxation and toil that she was used to when alive. Though at first she made it seem like an inconvenience, this lack of haste proves to be
Emily Dickinson is a famous English poet. Born in the 1800’s, she began writing poetry about death to describe feelings. Poetic techniques such as imagery and personification feature in one of her most famous poems, “Because I Could not Stop for Death”.
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 poetry is both thought provoking and shocking. This poem communicates many things about Dickinson, such as her cynical outlook on God, and her obsession with death. It is puzzling to me why a young lady such as Emily Dickinson would be so melancholy, since she seemed to have such a good life. Perhaps she just revealed in her poetry that dark side that most people try to keep hidden.
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.
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 stands out from her contemporaries by discussing one of man's inevitable fears in an unconventional way: death. In two of her poems, "I heard a fly buzz when I died" and "Because I could not stop for death," Dickinson expresses death in an unforeseen way. Although Dickinson portrays death in both of these poems, the way that she conveys the experience is quite different in each poem. Dickinson reveals death as a grim experience, with no glimpse of happiness once one's life is over in "I heard a fly buzz when I died. " In contrast to this, Dickinson consoles the reader by characterizing death as a tranquil journey in "Because I could not stop for Death."
Death is always a common theme in literature in not only old days but also present time, but in most of the case, death is described as a bad and horrible thing. Emily Dickinson is one of the most outstanding poets who write about the theme of death. In American literature, she is considered as one of the top three poets with Edgar Allan Poe and Whiteman. Her poems always have special using of punctuation, rhythm and image in writing about religion, death, love, nature and poetic art. That is why she makes a significant contribution to the American literature, especially in the poems write about her own feelings and thoughts about 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 is one of the numerous poets who uses death as the subject of several of her poems. In her poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," Death is portrayed as a gentleman who comes to give the speaker. a ride to eternity. Throughout the poem, Dickinson develops her unusual. interpretation of death and, by doing so, composes a poem full of imagery that is both unique and thought provoking.
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's Obsession with Death. 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.
Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.
Dickinson's poems for “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, “I Heard a Fly Buzz-when I died”, “I Died for Beauty-but was scarce”, are a portion of her poems for death. She focused on death as a natural thing that can be viewed as not very frightening. She expresses her feelings towards death as calm and peaceful.
Emily Dickinson once said, “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” Some people welcome death with open arms while others cower in fear when confronted in the arms of death. Through the use of ambiguity, metaphors, personification and paradoxes Emily Dickinson still gives readers a sense of vagueness on how she feels about dying. Emily Dickinson inventively expresses the nature of death in the poems, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)”, “I Heard a fly Buzz—When I Died—(465)“ and “Because I could not stop for Death—(712)”.
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.”