An Annotation of Emily Dickinson's The Last Night that She Lived

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An Annotation of Emily Dickinson's The Last Night that She Lived

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.

The Last Night that She Lived

by Emily Dickinson

The last Night that She Lived

It was a Common Night

Except the Dying--this to Us

Made Nature different

We noticed smallest things--

Things overlooked before

By this great light upon our Minds

Italicized--as 'twere.

As We went out and in

Between Her final Room

And Rooms were Those to be alive

Tomorrow were, a Blame

That Others could exist

While She must finish quite

A Jealousy for Her arose

So nearly infinite--

We waited while She passes--

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--

And We-We placed the Hair--

And drew the Head erect--

And then an awful leisure was

Belief to regulate--

It is noted immediately that nothing spectacular is taking place within the speaker's natural surroundings in response to the situation. The universe has not paused for the departing soul of a woman, or those left behind. It is clear from the first lines that the Dickinson will make no leaps to paint nature as an intelligible or responsive force.

The speaker is all too aware that it is the confrontation with the death of a loved one that causes "Those to be alive" to view their surroundings with a different slant. The event of death has jarred them into a state of heightened awareness. Previously inevident things; "smallest things" have been brought into focus. It is not the world that has changed, but their perception of it.

It is also important to note that the speaker refers to "Us". For the remainder of the poem she will only refer to herself as part of a collective. The word "I" is absent from the poem.

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