Emily’s Relationship with Death

2057 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Effects of peer pressure on teenagers

Emily’s Relationship with Death

Norman Cousins once said: “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” In other words, this quote means that people within a society are very pessimistic about their daily occurrences with fearing the pain of death. On the contrary, the notions of fear are still making the people within the society corrupt. While living in a family with great prestige can seem glamorous to outsiders, the children within the family have a hard time coping and finding their place within society. Without children having vital experiences starting at a young age, their ability to emerge to something bigger and better is minute. Being robbed of such experiences, could lead to the risk of children getting involved in gothic treachery. While money can bring opportunities along, it can also bring isolation. Despite the fact that, no two people are alike, many people are still able to share common experiences that have occurred in their past by talking amongst themselves. While sharing experiences is a great way to gain knowledge, another way of learning is to write down one’s own experiences; while still being able to reflect on the world around them. A good example of this style is that of Emily Dickinson and her relationship with death. While her limited experiences to the outside world kept from finding many relationships, the poems she wrote gave her the feeling of filling the void of isolation and some sanity.

Growing up in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson did not have the “typical” life of a young woman growing up in the nineteenth century. Born into one of Amherst’s most prominent families, Dickinson had only the best possessions in her life, ...

... middle of paper ...

...er dying her poems were then released to the public, with the intention of being a famous writer.

Being isolated during the last few months of life is something no person should have to go through. Although coming from a well-educated family that had a lot of money, parental notions built with the fear society only corrupted Emily Dickinson more. Norman Cousins once said: “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” Without children having vital experiences starting at a young age, their ability to emerge to something bigger and better is minute. Being robbed of such an experience such as a friendship can cause a child to get involved in gothic treachery. While everything looked good from the outside coming in, Emily Dickinson’s real life was desolate with the only relationship being involved with death.

Show More
Related

  • One Death, Different Perspectives.

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • “Because I could not stop for Death” and “Annabel Lee”: Similarities, Differences, and Their Authors

    1506 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Although Emily Dickinson is known as one of America’s best and most beloved poets, her extraordinary talent was not recognized until after her death” (Kort 1). Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, where she spent most of her life with her younger sister, older brother, semi-invalid mother, and domineering father in the house that her prominent family owned. As a child, she was curious and was considered a bright student and a voracious reader. She graduated from Amherst Academy in 1847, and attended a female seminary for a year, which she quitted as she considered that “’I [she] am [was] standing alone in rebellion [against becoming an ‘established Christian’].’” (Kort 1) and was homesick. Afterwards, she excluded herself from having a social life, as she took most of the house’s domestic responsibilities, and began writing; she only left Massachusetts once. During the rest of her life, she wrote prolifically by retreating to her room as soon as she could. Her works were influenced ...

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson: Life and Literature

    1064 Words  | 3 Pages

    Emily Dickinson was born December 10th, 1830 in her family home on main street in Amherst, Massachusetts to her two parents Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson. The homestead in which she was born was a family home owned by her grandparents who, soon after her sister’s birth in 1833, sold it out of the family. The Dickinson’s held residence in the home as tenants for the next seven years. Once her father’s political career took off, around the age she was nine, they moved to, and bought a new house in the same town. Dickinson was very close to her siblings, her older brother Austin and younger sister Lavinia. She had a strong attachment to her home and spent a lot of her time doing domestic duties such as baking and gardening. Dickinson also had good schooling experiences of a girl in the early nineteenth century. She started out her education in an Amherst district school, then from there she attended Amherst Academy with her sister for about seven years. At this school it is said that she was an extraordinary student with very unique writing talent. From there she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a year in 1847. this year was the longest she had spent away from home. In her youth, Dickinson displayed a social s...

    Read More

  • The Nature of Death in Emily Dickinson's Poems

    2260 Words  | 5 Pages

    Emily Dickinson, who achieved more fame after her death, is said to be one of the greatest American poets of all time. Dickinson communicated through letters and notes and according to Amy Paulson Herstek, author of “Emily Dickinson: Solitary and Celebrated Poet,” “Writing was the way she kept in touch with the world” (15). Dickinson’s style is unique and although unconventional, it led to extraordinary works of literature. Dickinson lived her life in solitude, but in her solitude she was free to read, write and think which led to her nonconformity and strong sense of individualism. Suzanne Juhasz, a biographer of Dickinson, sums up most critics’ idea of Dickinson ideally: “Emily Dickinson is at once the most intimate of poets, and the most guarded. The most self-sufficient, and the neediest. The proudest, and the most vulnerable. These contradictions, which we as her readers encounter repeatedly in her poems, are understandable, not paradoxical, for they result from the tension between the life to which she was born and the one to which she aspired” (1). Dickinson poured her heart and soul into over 1,700

    Read More

  • Death In A Rose For Emily

    737 Words  | 2 Pages

    Some changes in life are inevitable such as the aging process and death. Any day can be one’s last day walking or breathing, and for some the object of letting go of someone held for so long is tragic. It may even seem like the deceased person is still alive and everything is operating as normal or that it was all a big dream. In William Faulkner’s, “A Rose For Emily” the idea of Emily Grierson letting go of the only man she’s ever loved and cherished, in her father, leaves her torn apart. Looking to fill the fresh wound inside her heart, Emily sought desperate measures to ensure that the next man she loved would never leave her.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson's Obsession with Death

    2687 Words  | 6 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson and Her Poetry

    3199 Words  | 7 Pages

    Emily Dickinson is one of the great visionary poets of nineteenth century America. In her lifetime, she composed more poems than most modern Americans will even read in their lifetimes. Dickinson is still praised today, and she continues to be taught in schools, read for pleasure, and studied for research and criticism. Since she stayed inside her house for most of her life, and many of her poems were not discovered until after her death, Dickinson was uninvolved in the publication process of her poetry. This means that every Dickinson poem in print today is just a guess—an assumption of what the author wanted on the page. As a result, Dickinson maintains an aura of mystery as a writer. However, this mystery is often overshadowed by a more prevalent notion of Dickinson as an eccentric recluse or a madwoman. Of course, it is difficult to give one label to Dickinson and expect that label to summarize her entire life. Certainly she was a complex woman who could not accurately be described with one sentence or phrase. Her poems are unique and quite interestingly composed—just looking at them on the page is pleasurable—and it may very well prove useful to examine the author when reading her poems. Understanding Dickinson may lead to a better interpretation of the poems, a better appreciation of her life’s work. What is not useful, however, is reading her poems while looking back at the one sentence summary of Dickinson’s life.

    Read More

  • Emily Dickinson Influences

    590 Words  | 2 Pages

    Like any other child, Emily lived with her mother and father. Her father’s name was Edward Dickinson; he was a lawyer when she was born but then became deeply involved in politics. Her mother, Emily Dickinson, was like any mother in the 1800’s. She tended to the men, cooked and cleaned, and watched over the children. Emily also had an older brother, William Austin Dickinson, and younger sister, Lavinia Norcross Dickinson. Growing up and as adults the family managed to stay very close to each other, so close that the oldest built a ho...

    Read More

  • Emily Dickenson And The Theme Of Death

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emily Dickinson And the Theme of Death Emily Dickenson, an unconventional 19th century poet, used death as the theme for many of her poems. Dickenson's poems offer a creative and refreshingly different perspective on death and its effects on others. In Dickenson's poems, death is often personified, and is also assigned to personalities far different from the traditional "horror movie" roles. Dickenson also combines imaginative diction with vivid imagery to create astonishingly powerful poems.

    Read More

  • We Grow Accustomed To The Dark

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” by Emily Dickinson shares a similar theme to her other poems, which is an awareness of death and the darker struggles of life. Dickinson was a reclusive poet, and throughout her life suffered a surplus of tragic events, like the deaths of many family members in one year, and the handicapping physical tolls this trauma caused on her. These themes of struggle, sadness, and death often appear in Dickinson’s work.

    Read More

  • Because I Could Not Stop For Death By Emily Dickinson

    1200 Words  | 3 Pages

    In poetry, death is referred as the end of literature and it is associated with feeling of sorrows. However Emily Dickinson demonstrates that death is not the end of literature or feeling of sadness but death is a new element of inspiration in poetry and is the beginning of a new chapter in our life. In the poem ‘’Because I Could Not Stop for Death’, she discusses the encounter of a women with death, who passed away centuries ago. Dickenson uses metaphors and similes to show that the process of dying can be an enjoyable moment by appreciating the good moments in life, and by respecting death rather than fearing it. Also Dickinson portrays death in a humorous way as she compares it to man seducing her to go to her death as well, to childhood games that show the innocence of this encounter (Bloom). The poem is a reflection of how unpredictable death can be. Death is a scary process in life that should not be feared because it should be celebrate as new start.

    Read More

  • Theme Of When I Gave Myself To Him

    1868 Words  | 4 Pages

    Dickinson was unique and the “exception” in creating a private relationship with her self and her soul. In “Emily Dickinson and Popular Culture”, David S. Reynolds, a new historicism critic, wrote that it 's no surprise that the majority of Dickinson 's poetry was produced between 1858-1866, “It was a period of extreme consciousness about proliferation of varied women 's role in American culture.” It was a time where women were actively searching for more “literary” ways of self expression” (Reynolds 25). Dickinson was able to express her ideas and beliefs as a woman, something that was scandalous during this time period.

    Read More

  • Death Emily Bronte Research Paper

    1657 Words  | 4 Pages

    If you’ve ever experienced a death of a family member or a friend, it is obvious how harshly that can make a person’s life take a turn for the worse. Emily Bronte lost her mother, two sisters, and aunt during her life and instead of turning her loss into negativity; she used her pain to create something beautiful. While women were not taken seriously during her time, and poems regarding nature were not widely regarded in the Victorian Age; she wrote from the heart when she created her poem “Death”. Therefore, the deaths of Emily Bronte’s family influenced her obsession with death in her poetry and admiration of nature since she lived a more secluded lifestyle after losing her family.

    Read More

  • The Nobody Who Became a Somebody

    785 Words  | 2 Pages

    Guthrie, James. “Emily Dickinson”. ENG 3310-02 American Texts: Colonial -1890.Wright State University, Fairborn, Ohio. 25 October 2013. Lecture.

    Read More

  • Themes of Death and Immortality in Emily Dickinson's Poetry

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.”

    Read More

More about Emily’s Relationship with Death

Open Document