Emily Dickinson's Obsession with Death

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Emily Dickinson's Obsession with Death

Emily Dickinson's obsession with death has puzzled scholars for many decades. If a reader wanted to, he could put every one of Emily Dickinson's nearly 2,000 poems and letters (so many that later, they were assigned numbers for easier organization) into 4 categories: Love, death, pain and the self. The poems about death are the most captivating and puzzling, "The poems that issue from this spiritual exercise are among her most impressive," (Cunningham 45).

In order to understand some of the feelings Dickinson expresses and to learn how the way she chose to live her life affected her unique poetic style, it is important to look at her life before she began to write and the atmosphere she grew up in. Born December 10, 1830 in the quiet village of Amhearst in the Connecticut valley of Massachusetts in New England, Dickinson lived a quiet, unrecognized life. She lived in a brick mansion located on Main Street with her well known family (who later showed to influence her mark on present-day American poetry).

Dickinson's father, Edward, served his town in a number of ways. He served as the treasurer of Amhearst College (their grandfather had helped establish the college) and being a lawyer, he helped various Amhearst citizens in their legal matters. He also served in the General Court of Massachusetts, the State Senate and the United States House of Representatives. Edward Dickinson dominated the household, "his heart was pure and terribleÉI think no other like it exists", Dickinson wrote after his death,(Rupp 98).

Her mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson, and Edward had raised Dickinson to be a cultured Christian woman, they wanted their daughter to be capable to run a family of her own ...

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...e stillness in the air; Between the heaves of storm..." Next, she began to describe the last few moments leading up to her death, "The

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eyes beside had wrung them dry,; And breaths were gathering sure; For that last onsetÉ" Dickinson then goes on to explain that she is prepared to die on this day, "ÉI willed my keepsakes, signed away; What portion of me I; Could make assignable,--and thenÉ" Then the fly makes his unexpected experience, "ÉThere interposed a fly,; With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,; Between the light and me;É" Finally, the closing lines, "And then the windows failed, and then; I could not see to see." The last two lines represent her death.

Emily Dickinson's obsession with death has puzzled scholars for many decades. "I Heard a Fly Buzz when I Died" is just one of the numerous examples of Emily Dickinson's obsession with death.

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