Emily Dickenson Essay - 736 Words

Emily Dickenson Emily Dickinsons poems, â€Å"Because I Could Not Stop For Death† and â€Å"I Heard A Fly Buzz-When I Died,† are both about one of lifes few certainties, death. However, that is where the similarities end. Although Dickinson wrote both poems, their ideas about what lies after death differ. In one, there appears to be life after death, but in the other there is nothing. A number of clues in each piece help to determine which poem believe in what. The clues in â€Å"I heard a Fly buzz-when I died,† point to a disbelief in an afterlife. In this poem, a woman is lying in bed with her family or friends standing all around waiting for her to die. While the family is waiting for her to pass on, she is waiting for†¦show more content†¦In the piece, â€Å"Because I Could Not Stop For Death,† Dickinson tells the story of a woman who is being taken away by Death. The speaker in the poem clearly states that she will not stop for Death but that it will have to come and get her. This is illustrated in the second line of the poem â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death- He kindly stopped for me.† â€Å"The Carriage held but just Ourselves-And Immortality.† The idea of immortality is the first indication that this poem believes in an afterlife. In many religions, where there is a grim reaper type spirit, this being will deliver a persons soul to another place, usually heaven or hell. In the thir d stanza the speaker talks of how she and Death passed the school, the â€Å"Fields of Gazing Grain-We passed the Setting Sun.† This stanza is referring to the woman looking back on her own life as she is dying. This would not be possible without an afterlife because if the soul were to simply drift away into nothingness, it wouldn’t be able to reflect it’s lifetime. After this Dickinson presents the idea of the coldness of death in saying â€Å"The Dews drew quivering and chill.† This is when we know for sure that the woman is in fact dead. In the fifth stanza, Death and the woman pause before â€Å"...a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground- The Roof was scarcely visible- The Cornice in the Ground-.† Even though the poem does not come out and say it, it is likely thatShow MoreRelated Emily Dickenson And The Theme Of Death Essay604 Words   |  3 Pages Emily Dickinson And the Theme of Death nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Emily Dickenson, an unconventional 19th century poet, used death as the theme for many of her poems. Dickensons poems offer a creative and refreshingly different perspective on death and its effects on others. In Dickensons poems, death is often personified, and is also assigned to personalities far different from the traditional quot;horror moviequot; roles. Dickenson also combines imaginative diction with vividRead MoreEssay about Death in Emily Dickenson1313 Words   |  6 PagesDeath in Emily Dickenson With the thought of death, many people become terrified as if it were some creature lurking behind a door ready to capture them at any moment. Unlike many, Emily Dickinson was infatuated with death and sought after it only to try and help answer the many questions which she pondered so often. Her poetry best illustrates the answers as to why she wrote about it constantly. She explains her reason for writing poetry, â€Å"I had a terror I couldRead MoreLife Influences On Emily Dickenson s Work1315 Words   |  6 PagesJuwan Adams Mrs. Bales Eng. Comp II 22 April, 2016 Life Influences on Emily Dickenson’s Work A poem is a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanzaic structure. Emily Dickinson, a very established poet of the nineteenth-century, used this style of writing to express feelings toward religion, love, and death. All of her inspiration came from theseRead MoreBy Emily Dickenson, Sunsets, And Sunsets763 Words   |  4 Pageswith Many Colored Brooms†, by Emily Dickenson, and â€Å"Sunsets†, by Carl Sandburg; the authors compare sunset to women. The beauty of the sunset is the central theme in both poems; however, they each contain different ideas about sunset. For example, Dickenson, focuses more on the beauty of sunset comparing it to a housewife. In turn, Sandburg, compares sunset to a female dancer, and brings out the different kinds of ways the sun sets. In the poem, by Emily Dickenson she compares sunset to a housewifeRead MoreThere’s no Frigate like a Book by Emily Dickenson715 Words   |  3 PagesDickenson’s â€Å"There’s no Frigate like a Book† takes the soul on an epic journey around the world and magical portals, while escorted by a royal entourage as if by a personal chariot. Considerable ingenuity is found in Dickinson’s metaphorical and figurative literature. She uses metaphors, denotation, connotation, and figurative language in a persuasive way which will be examined line by line. It is truly a book lover’s poem for it is a celebration of the joy and infinite power of reading. AlthoughRead MoreShort Story : The Last Place And We Stay 1291 Words   |  6 Pageslast place Emily Beam would want to go to is a library. The start of it all began at a high school party when Emily and senior, Paul Wagoner entered a bedroom nearby. Weeks followed along with her cravings and projec tile vomiting. Frightened and confused, Emily sat in a neighboring McDonalds’s bathroom, awaiting her test results. When Emily opened the restroom door, revealing Paul’s anxious face, she showed him the results. At age seventeen, Paul felt he was already a father, however, Emily was notRead More Death in Auden’s Funeral Blues, Forche’s Memory of Elena, and Dickinson’s Last Night that She lived1678 Words   |  7 Pagesone or oneself. In W.H. Auden’s poem â€Å"Funeral Blues† (1003), he describes such a catastrophic event and the drastic effect that it has on his life. It is interesting how people choose to accept this permanent and expected event, death. Similarly, Emily Dickinson has written many poems about death, such as â€Å"The last Night that She lived† (843), which describes a family waiting for a woman or girl to die and the dreary and depressed mood that exists within the household. Mourning is considered a perfec tlyRead MoreEmily Dickinsons Because I Could Not Stop For Death1249 Words   |  5 Pages Emily Dickinsons most famous work, Because I Could Not Stop for Death is generally considered to be one of the great masterpieces of American poetry (GALE). Dickinson experienced an emotional crisis of an undetermined nature in the early 1860s. Her traumatized state of mind is believed to have inspired her writing. In this particular poem, â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death,† the deceased narrator of the poem reminisces about that material day when Death came seeking for her. In stanza oneRead MoreDominant Themes In Whitmans Poetry Essay711 Words   |  3 Pagesappreciative of life itself. There are many themes in Emily Dickenson’s poem that is very reminiscent of Whitman’s popular themes. Although there were some consistencies with the themes Whitman’s used in his own work, there were still a lot of ideas Whitman would not have agreed with. The poem starts off with something Whitman would have unanimously disagreed with. Dickenson writes to â€Å"tell all the truth but tell it slant.† Here Dickenson is implying to tell the truth without telling the wholeRead MoreCompare/Contrast of Two Short Stories - River Nemunas Things WeLl Need for the Coming Difficulties1304 Words   |  6 PagesComing Difficulties. The River Nemunas has almost a dreary poetic feeling to the writing. There was a great reference to Emily Dickenson in the beginning of that story, about how Allie was carrying an Emily Dickenson book with her, perhaps because she is a fan, which I think is very fitting because the story is supposedly told by Allie, and it has a similar feel to an Emily Dickenson piece. Things We’ll Need For The Coming Difficulties has almost no poetic feel to it, however, what links the writing