Analysis Of Backyard Blues By Natasha Trethewey

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 “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 perfectly healthy reaction when someone who is deeply loved and cared about passes on, and this is illustrated in “The Memory of Elena” (1070-71) by Carolyn Forche. She writes about the events following a funeral and also flashes back to the actual moment that a wife has watched her husband die. W.H Auden’s “Funeral Blues,” Carolyn Forche’s “The Memory of Elena,” and Emily Dickinson’s “The last Night that She lived” are all poems which share death as their subject matter, but differ in the fact that they discuss death in a unique style with a variety of literary devices to make them more effective.

In the poem "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain" Dickinson seems to be describing a delusion of a person that is contemplating what will happen to him/her when he/she dies. This poem also seems to be an affirmation of heaven and hell and a personal battle within the narrator to come to terms with his/her own mortal existence. In the first stanza Dickinson describes "feeling a funeral in her brain". This could be a metaphor for her own personal death and the reference to "sense breaking through" tells the reader that only through death can a person ever understand and/or value life. This could be viewed as a retrospection on the narrators life and a telling poem about where she was at in her existance around this period of time.

Granny remembers her important moments, feelings, disappointments, and achievements throughout the story. Also, she remembers the death of her husband, the lost of her last born, and most importantly, the jilting that happened to her sixty years ago. Granny takes the readers and herself to her life’s most dramatic events. Moreover, the writer uses the third person narrator, so that readers get entertained while there is no plot in the story. As we read the story, we notice the themes of memories, betrayal, and death is what makes Granny struggle through her death.

Reoccurring Theme of Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson There is a reoccurring theme of death in the poems of Emily Dickinson. This can be seen in poems such as “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”, “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died”, “My Life Has Stood A Loaded Gun,” “My Life Closed Twice Before It Closed,” “Heaven is What I Cannot Reach,” and “Death Sets A Thing Significant.” While some of Dickinson’s poems talk about death in an inviting and unafraid way others present the subject in tones of grief and sadness. Most of her poems that deal with death, depends on the continued life of the mind or at least up to the final moment. Dickinson also personifies death making it seem all the more real. To understand the poet’s fascination with

Emily Dickinson’s Poem 422 In her poem numbered 422, Emily Dickinson addresses death, the theme of many of her works. This poem describes the death of a woman and the emotions of those around her at the time of her passing. The first line of this poem is very interesting. Dickinson uses the phrase " the last night she lived" instead the night she died as most would describe this circumstance. This puts more emphasis on the life of the person dying and her life.

Explored thoroughly in her works, death seems to be a dominating theme through out Dickinson's life. Dickinson, although secluded and isolated, had a few encounters with love; two perhaps serious affairs were documented in her letters and poems. But, since Dickinson's life was so private the exact identity of these people remains unsure. What is known, is during the Civil War, worried for her friends and families' lives, death increased in frequency to be a dominant theme in her writings. After 1878, the year of her influential father's death, (a treasurer of Amherst College, and a member of the Congress), this theme increased with each passing of friend or family, peaking perhaps with the death of the two men she loved (The Belle of Amherst, Dickinson).

Majority of Dickinson's poems reflect her lifelong fascination with illness, dying and death. Her poems included lengthy discussion of death by many methods: crucifixion, drowning, hanging, suffocation, freezing, premature burial, shooting, stabbing and guillotining. Dickinson’s poems are now in this day and age characterized by her unusual style and view of the world. The first Stanza of Dickinson's poem says “After great pain, a feeling comes-” This means the overall feeling of death of a loved one is almost indescribable. A feeling that is upon one where they are almost in a n unresponsive state.

Emily Dickinson was born in 1830.During time the frame of Dickinson’s life war and sickness were running rampant across the United States, every day people were dying. Emily Dickinson also experienced many losses in her life such as loved ones and close friends, because of this Emily Dickinson in many of her writings, themes, symbols, and other things to depict death to her readers. One of the first poems Dickinson instills the theme of death on her readers is in poem 49 ( I’ve never lost as much but twice). During this poem Dickinson experiences loss three times. In the first stanza Dickinson says, “I never lost as much but twice and that was in the sod;”(Johnson 49) this meaning that she has never lost more then 2 friends.

Many people deal with the death of a loved one in many different ways. American poet Emily Dickinson wrote poetry to deal with the death of her loved ones, along with the company of her religion. Dickinson wrote a variety of poetry dealing with nature, god, death, illness, beauty, suffering and survival. In Dickinson’s poem “After Great Pain” she expresses a theme of death through many different aspects like religion. In Dickinson’s poem she writes in a free forum form creating a three stanza poem with 13 lines.

There are many ways that people can handle grief, this poem is just one way that two people handle their lost. “Home Burial” also gives the “morbidness of death in these remote place; a women unable to take up her life again when her only child has died. The charming idyll” (Robyn V. Young, Editor, 195). Works Cited Ferster, Judith. Arguing through Literature: A Thematic Anthology and Guide.