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Theme of death in dickinson poetry
The theme of death in Emily Dickinson's poetry
Theme of death in dickinson poetry
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Dickinson uses an extended metaphor in her poem, “A Clock stopped” in order to represent how quickly time goes by and how it has the ultimate power of life or death of a living thing. Through her extensive abstract diction, Dickinson is able to portray an image of a person dying through descriptions of a clock malfunctioning and ultimately not being able to be fixed. The poem begins with “A Clock stopped” (Line 1), which is interpreted as a person has just died. By beginning like this, Dickinson is starting her poem in the middle of an entire situation by not saying the leading events to how this person has come to this ultimate end. Dickinson starts off her metaphor with intense metaphysical diction by using the indefinite article “a” when mentioning the power of the clock for the first time. This inadvertently makes the clock an universal being, forcing the poem to have a greater meaning as a whole relating to all and not just one. …show more content…
“An awe came on the Trinket! The Figures hunched, with pain-- Then quivered out of Decimals--.” These three lines show the last stages of a person’s life in comparison to the parts of a cuckoo clock. The last line, line 9, states, “Into Degreeless noon,” portraying that the person died when noon struck, or when the figurines of the cuckoo clock came out to do their little dance on the hour. Dickinson’s use of diction in this line by describing noon as degreeless, places an image of a clock into the reader’s mind. At noon, the minute and the hour hands are together pointing upwards. This shows how the person’s life has come into contact with their dying moment and he or she will ascend towards heaven at this
The structure of this poem is complex and it tied directly into the figurative meaning. This poem consists of three quatrains written in iamic meter but with no set number of feet per line. Also, the second and fourth lines of each quatrain thyme somewhat. Perhaps the most perplexing attribute of the structure is that Dickinson capitalizes words in mid-sentence that would not normally be capitalized. This could represent decaying objects; capitalized words represent things still standing and lowercase words represent things decayed. This poem is choppy at timed, but it flows smoothly at others. Long hyphens throughout the poem slow down reading speed. This could be compared to the rate of decay. Sometimes decay is rapid, sometimes it is slow. the last three parts of the poem’s structure help create its figurative meaning.
Dickinson employs vivid impressions of death in this poem. In the first line, she employs the analogy between sleep and death; sleep is silent but death lives within silence. She uses the word “it” to help identify something other than human. She declares that “it….will not tell its name” as thought it refuses to speak and then resents the dead for its stillness and laziness. Then she acknowledges the attraction she has to death by doubting its “gravity”. In the third stanza, she expresses that she would not cry for the dead because not only is it offensive to the dead but it might panic the soul to return to dust. Christians believe that from the earth we are made and once we die, we return to the dust of the earth.
She chooses this arrangement of verse in order to ordain a religious aspect into the poem, which does well to suite the theme and what she is fond of. As the recollection of the speaker’s death progresses, Dickinson uses the stanzas to mark the stages of the
Emily Dickinson is a self-described "Nobody". Although she wrote thousands of poems, most of them were not published during her lifetime. Born in the 19th century, she was extremely well educated for a woman of her time, and she attended school from primary school up to her first year of college, when she ultimately left for unknown reasons. This allowed her to explore her love of the sciences and nature, especially botany. Despite having many friends, whom she kept in touch with through letters, she became a recluse during her later years, which scholars now suspect was caused by mental conditions such as agoraphobia, depression, or anxiety. However, her years of seclusion led to the creation of hugely imaginative and thought provoking poems.
Emily Dickinson is one of the numerous poets who uses death as the subject of several of her poems. In her poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," Death is portrayed as a gentleman who comes to give the speaker. a ride to eternity. Throughout the poem, Dickinson develops her unusual. interpretation of death and, by doing so, composes a poem full of imagery that is both unique and thought provoking.
Dickinson 's poem uses poetic devices of personification to represent death, she represents death as if it were a living being. Dickinson 's capitalization of the word “DEATH”, causes us to see death as a name, in turn it becomes noun, a person, and a being, rather than what it truly is, which is the culminating even of human life. The most notable use of this, is seen in the very first few lines of the poem when Dickinson says “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me”. In her poem Dickinson makes death her companion, as it is the person who is accompanying her to her grave. She states that death kindly stopped for her and she even goes as far as to give death the human ability to stop and pick her up. The occasion of death through Dickinson use of personification makes it seem like an interaction between two living beings and as a result the poem takes on a thoughtful and light hearted tone. The humanization of death makes the experience more acceptable and less strange, death takes on a known, familiar, recognizable form which in turn makes the experience more relatable. As the poem
A funeral is usually seen as a formal event meaning there will normally be order and control with very minimal chaos. The funeral Dickinson describes in the poem is far from a “normal” funeral. The control and order of a funeral contrast the chaos within the speaker’s mind. Also, a funeral marks a passing from one state to another, life to death. This parallels with the passing in the speaker’s life, from sanity to insanity. She is an observer of the funeral and a participant. This tells the readers that there is a divide in the Self of the speaker. By the end of the poem, Self is destroyed and shattered. On the other hand, funerals can also be viewed as celebrations of one’s life. This can signify the freedom of the speaker’s freedom as it
Dickinson unravels this thesis in the poem by explaining how time is not composed in the past, or in the future it is only composed of “nows” referring to the present time. The majority of this poem develops her idea that time is “untouchable” unless it is in the moment (O’Brien). In accordance with that line, the following sentence gives insight into her point by providing support in creating a paradox. This paradox is used in this poem to exaggerate her point in that time exists only and
In the beginning of the poem, Dickinson writes, "Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me." Not only does Dickinson portray death as a man, but she does so in a way that the man is not perceived in a negative way. She writes as if the man is her lover, kindly stopping in a way as if he was to suit her. Death is not our enemy, but instead is our companion. In the next two lines, in lines three and four, Dickinson then uses a metaphor to compare a carriage to death.... ...
The waxing and waning action of the text might symbolize the constant cycles of life. The fact that the text recedes then elongates in rhythm make the reader think the speaker of the poem is not sure what steps to take in their life. The speaker might not have convinced him or herself about the suicide attempt. Many suicidal thoughts are stopped short of action and then thought about later. Dickinson writes in this style to show the opposing forces of every situation. Suicide would likely be the most contemplated decision the narrator has ever had to make.
Dickinson’s poem lives on complex ideas that are evoked through symbols, which carry her readers through her poem. Besides the literal significance of –the “School,” “Gazing Grain,” “Setting Sun,” and the “Ring” –much is gathered to complete the poem’s central idea. Dickinson brought to light the mysteriousness of the life cycle. The cycle of one’s life, as symbolized by Dickinson, has three stages and then a final stage of eternity. “Schools, where children strove” (9) may represent childhood; “Fields of Gazing Grain” (11), maturity; and “Setting Sun” (12) old age. In addition to these three stages, the final stage of eternity was symbolized in the last two lines of the poem, the “Horses Heads” (23), leading “towards Eternity” (24). Dickinson thought about the life cycle in terms of figurative symbols.
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 ...
The heart, personified, seems to be referring to another person, unless the heart also talks in the third person. Since the he is capitalized, it is easy to believe that Dickinson is actually alluding to Jesus. If this is the case, could she be blurring the line of time in order to demonstrate how pain is recurring no matter the century, and the numbness that follows resonates with many. Line 5 does not quite give us the sense of ultimate death, but more of a zombie feel. The imagery of a person walking mechanically gives us the sense of someone caught between life and death.Once again, Dickinson is seemingly describing the emotional numbness of losing a loved one. My final point come from the final stanza,’Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the snow”. A simile comparing the people freezing to death in the snow to remembering the numbing pain after a death. Again, the contradiction gives the feeling that someone is caught between life and death. I think this particular poem conveys the sense of confusion that shakes us when we experience a great
For Dickinson, on the contrary, death is not something unreal. As the author has written "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me..." After reading these two lines the reader "imagines the picture of Death being a human which joins the author during the ride" . Dickinson tries to portray the characteristics of death in the poem. Stating that there is eternity after death, the author alludes both the possibility of the life after death and absolute zero-ness of it. Unlike Plath, Dickinson not only talks about the notion of death, but personalizes it. The reader feels that the author in fact...
The first stanza is crucial to setting up this theory. The speaker “could not stop for Death—” (line 1), so Death stopped for her (line 2). The word ‘stop’ has a connotation of an immediate break in movement, or life’s progression. As Death stops for the speaker, her life has now ended and thus time fades away and she begins her endless journey towards Eternity. On their way, Death “knew no haste” (line 5) while the speaker left behind her “labor and [her] leisure too for His Civility” (line 7-8) which describes the two basic categories all of her time would fall into. Here we can see that time in life and death are measured differently, Death moving at his own pace while the speaker let’s go of all the time she had previously in order to please Death. After passing through the cycle of life in stanza three, the speaker makes a point to say “Or rather— He passed Us—” (line 13). This is another instance of Death being in control of the situation, suggesting one’s life does not move forward without Death ‘passing’ them first. The capitalization of “He” and “His” when referring to Death resembles the use of capitalization when referring to God in Christianity. Although Dickinson was very open about not wanting to be a Christian in her late teens (“Emily Dickinson.”), she would have been aware of this