In “The Last Night that She lived”, Emily Dickinson expresses her distinct attitude toward the woman’s death through the use of diction, imagery, and personification. Dickinson’s “The Last Night that She lived” presents a mediation on the reaction of the speaker and those with her while they are confronted with death of a female friend. Strangely enough, Dickinson strays from the allusions of God and the afterlife and focuses on other diction, She begins her first stanza,” The last night that she lived, it was a common night, except for the dying.” This quote reveals that the death of this woman has no significance to the speaker. Dickinson uses the words “final”, “passed”, and “infinite” to illustrate death as a hault to the ones physical existence. Dickinson goes through a journey in the poem. In the beginning it seems that the speaker is in absolute denial, unable to express her feelings, but in the end she uses the word “we” in the last stanza to put emphasis on the death of the woman. Along with the use of diction, Dickinson uses imagery to illustrate her feelings in “The Last Night that She lived”. The imagery in this poem reflects a peaceful death. When the second stanza discusses the “smallest things”, the reader can interpret a family sitting around quietly …show more content…
She writes,” Too jostled were Our Souls to speak.” This quote describes the pain and despair that they felt when they heard the news of her death. Another example of personification is when she writes in the sixth stanza, ”Then lightly as a Reed Bent to the Water, struggled scarce- Consented, and was dead.” Through personification, Dickinson motions through the death of the lady. Alike the Reed, the lady died peacefully as a natural occurrence in life. The author has realized that was bound to happen and to not fight that fact. She has accepted death as it came and knows she can not do anything about
Although Dickinson addresses death, one of her prevalent themes, in this poem, she does it very differently. This poem describes the death of a loved one and the grief that ensues, something that many people experience sometime in their life. In other poems when Dickinson speaks of death it is about her own death or Death as a figure who has its own personality because she was quite intrigued by it. This poem deals more with a human experience and emotions that everyone can relate to.
Emily Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she lived the entirety of her life. It was here where she would oftentimes correspond with a small group of select friends, for whom she deeply cared about. Entering the late 1800s, she wrote most of the poems for which she is known today. A few years afterwards, various members of her family and several friends passed away, leaving her in a questionable emotional state and in turn making future readers wonder if the deaths of those close to her also affected her poetic inspirations. In her poem “The Last Night that She Lived,” Emily Dickinson features a female speaker who presents an image of a group of people waiting and pacing around a house as a woman lies on her deathbed-- image
The speaker’s language towards the woman’s death in “The Last Night that she lived” portrays a yearning attitude that leads to disappointment; which reiterates human discontent with the imperfections of life. The description of woman’s death creates an image of tranquility that causes the speaker to aspire towards death. Her death compares to a reed floating in water without any struggle. The simile paradoxically juxtaposes nature and death because nature’s connotation living things, while death refers to dead things, but death becomes a part of nature. She consents to death, so she quietly dies while those around her refuse to accept her imminent death. The speaker’s description of death sounds like a peaceful experience, like going to sleep, but for eternity. These lines describe her tranquil death, “We waited while She passed—It was a narrow time—Too jostled were Our Souls to speak. At length the notice came. She mentioned, and forgot—Then lightly as a Reed Bent to the water, struggled scarce- Consented, and was dead-“ .Alliteration in “We waited”, emphasizes their impatience of the arrival of her death because of their curiosity about death. The woman’s suffering will be over soon. This is exhibited through the employment of dashes figuratively that form a narrow sentence to show the narrowing time remaining in her life, which creates suspense for the speaker, and also foreshadows that she dies quickly. The line also includes a pun because “notice” refers to the information of her death, and also announcement, which parallels to the soul’s inability to speak. “She mentioned, and forgot—“, refers to her attempt to announce her farewell to everyone, which connects to the previous line’s announcement. The dashes fig...
Elements of despair evident from the inner workings of Emily Dickinson are present in her poem, “After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes--.” Emily Dickinson led a difficult life which left her alone. These feelings of sorrow and isolation have produced works by Dickinson which question human existence and thought. Such works include the theme of despair which is inextricably related to spiritual strivings and misgivings. They lead inevitably to her thematic concern with man’s knowledge of death and his dream of immortality, directly relevant to “After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes--.”In this poem, Emily Dickinson renders the extinction of consciousness by pain in terms of a funeral. By paraphrasing the first stanza,After great pain, a formal feeling comes--The Nerves sits ceremonious, like Tombs--The stiff Heart, questions was it He, that bore,And Yesterday, or Centuries before?The reader perceives the first of three stages of a funeral ceremony, the formal service. After the onset of suffering through death, the presence of finality through a funeral rises.
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...
Emily Dickinson's, "Because I could not Stop for Death" is just as intriguing a poem as it is thought-provoking. It contains the description of the persona reminiscing about a death experience. The persona does not describe death as scary or one that inspires fear. On the contrary, it is presented as content and serene. There is a clear personification of death making it appear as if it is not just an event in a person's life. This essay supports the idea that the poem is about a speaker who describes her journey accompanied by death to the other side of the World that is eternal life.
However, there seems to be a larger idea about death, similar to that of “I heard a Fly buzz-- when I died--,” in which Dickinson is trying to portray within the poem. Once again, the poem begins with a certain depiction of death as the speaker expresses that she “could not stop for Death” but that “He kindly stopped” for her. At the time, Death “knew no haste,” meaning that he did not mean any ill intent towards the speakers passing. However, the idea that death “kindly” stopped for the speaker, who “could not stop for” him, insinuates that the speaker was not ready for death to overtake her, but that death was going to take her anyway. Since death “knew no haste,” he wasn’t going to rush her death, but the speaker was definitely going to pass away. Additionally, the speaker had “put away / [her] labor,” suggesting that she was not going to try hard to avoid death, and the speaker had also put away “[her] leisure too”. “Leisure” is defined as ‘spare’ or ‘free’ time, so, if the speaker was to “put away” her “leisure,” then the speaker is demonstrating that she is reluctantly accepting the hands of death. Within the third stanza, it’s detailed that death’s carriage was passing by a School, “where Children strove” during recess. They passed “fields of gazing grain” and the “setting sun”. These
Death was surprisingly kind for her “He kindly stopped for me”(Dickinson 2). Dickinson uses personification
The young girl who had passed on in Dickinson’s poem experiences the life elapse without her. “Because I could not stop for Death –He kindly stopped for me –” (Line 1-2). Death knows it was her time, but she didn't plead for him to take her. Death is portrayed as a kind, sensible
There’s a common theme of death in her poetry. She speaks in first person in most of her writings, and it’s as if death is overcoming her. In “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”, a poem taking place exactly how the title sounds, we see that Dickinson was consumed of the idea of death. She was so consumed with the thought, that she felt a funeral in her head. Although it wasn’t like any other funeral, as we can see from the mourners walking back and forth, beatings of a drum, and ringings of church bells.
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.”
Much like, one of her poems “I measure every Grief I meet” she states “I wonder if it hurts to live – And if They have to try –And whether – could They choose between – It would not be – to die – “(lines 5-8). Here Dickinson is a lot clearer with the idea of death and putting the message more plain and upfront for us. Now knowing this and seeing her works here this can help us relate back to Dickinson’s ideas in “I felt a Funeral, in my
At times in her life, Emily Dickinson longed to die, to end her seemingly hopeless existence. Death occurred frequently in her time of the middle 1800’s, but compounded in her life especially. Mother, Father, lover, and several friends all died and left Dickinson with nothing else on her mind. Her poems display her queer relationship with death. At times, termination of her earthly life seemed almost a gift to her to end all trouble and carry her to Heaven.
In conclusion, Plath is successful in the poetry because she managed to express certain things such as death in the variety of ways. She views death as being something horrible, a condition at which people are de-humanized and lack all th emotions and feelings. At the same time Plath connects death to life and makes an assumption that it is impossible to understand life without knowing that death exists. Dickinson, on the contrary, depicts death as something humans are both afraid of and at the same time are waiting for all their lives. Death in the poetry of Dickinson is not so horrible as in the writing of Plath. Dickinson views death as being a perfect condition when person gets freedom from all the troubles and can have eternal life.