Considered one of the most original and greatest poets in American literature, Emily Dickinson, throughout her poetry, attempts to challenge the reader's own view, often through themes of death, grief, truth and fame. She is believed to have lived most of her life in seclusion, communicating with her friends only by letters and never married, which was unusual for the times in which she lived. She was an extremely prolific writer, penning over 1,800 poems during her lifetime. Yet fewer than a dozen of them were published during his lifetime. His poems were only discovered after his death in 1886 by his younger sister Lavinia. His first collection was published in 1890 but heavily edited by his acquaintances. The first complete, unchanged collection of poetry was printed in 1955, when Thomas H. Johnson, a scholar, published it as The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay This poetry analysis article will examine the different examples of how Dickinson views death. Often, death is seen as the end. It terrifies and awaits us all, steals the remaining days from a person without giving them the opportunity to fight back. Is this why people love life so much? Or is it because of the uncertainty that death brings us? Living in such fear, are we really living? Or do we live specifically so that we can die and become one with something else? Often people think they know the answers to all of these questions or, at the very least, pretend to know the answers. Dickinson never knew these answers and that is why she dedicated several of her poems in the hope of answering these questions, which will be raised in this poetic analysis essay through Dickinson's three poems: I loves a look of agony (or poem 241), Because I could not stop before death and I heard the buzz of a fly – when I died. The first analysis of the poem on I love a look at agony. The narrator explains that he prefers to see pain and agony in people, because it is truthful. However, the poem evolves around a certain type of agony, and it is that which precedes death. Dickinson doesn't talk about the inevitability of death, how she would like to escape it, or its suddenness in a moment when one least expected it. . Rather, it is the only time when a person can openly tell the truth about themselves and is unable to express their emotions. Throughout life, in hopes of assimilating and being accepted into a community, people are often forced to conform to certain norms and socially accepted behavior. In a way, people put different masks on their faces so that they, in turn, can control their emotions and actions in all possible situations, so as not to be manipulated by others and vice versa. Yet the only adversary before which every person must become completely transparent and honest is death. This is the time when no mask can hide a person's true face or frank emotions. The agony that precedes death, whether it is pain or pure terror in the face of the unknown, forces everyone to rip everything out of themselves and reveal the soul that lies beneath. Dickinson shows us this precise moment of death's triumph over a person as a method of freeing the person from the toils, chains, and Sisyphean masks in which society has imprisoned them. Ironically, death in this poem is not a punishment or an end - death is asymbol of freedom. All the burdens that a person is forced to carry throughout his life are relieved in an instant, the very moment death occurs. This also gives the poem a rather optimistic tone, unusual for Dickinson's poetry. The poem also does not make the reader fear death, but rather arouses a certain type of curiosity: could death be considered a kind of rebirth? ? If looked through the lens of religion, it could mean a journey to heaven as in the Abrahamic religions, but it could also mean a kind of reincarnation found in Buddhism and Hinduism. Yet, putting religious parameters aside, this type of death can be seen as a soul finally freed from a mortal body and a person freed from societal norms and obligations. Could death be considered a moment of joy if we can accept it that way? This is the main theme and question of the poem. Death could be seen as that pure, unblemished moment in which a person allows himself to become one with oblivion and perish. The second poem in this poetic analysis will be Because I Couldn't Stop for Death. On a fundamental level, the poem is about the stages of the narrator's life as Death drives her in his carriage to her grave. Death here is a gradual, slow process that takes time, but is still inevitable. In the first stanza we can see that the narrator led a busy life, not even having time to die, which is why Death itself kindly stopped and offered to give her a ride. in his car. The second stanza shows us that there is no rush, and in the following stanzas the narrator and Death take a look at the narrator's life up to this point until they arrive in a house that looked like a swelling in the ground, symbolizing his final resting place. , and yet the narrator, knowing that centuries will pass from the moment she enters her tomb, is not afraid – for she will feel as if only one day has passed for her. Death in this poem is both personified and not. Death personified seems like a kind of gentleman: he is patient, polite, cordial and kindly offers to give her a ride. The narrator's reluctance to stop and die is actually more than superficial, as it symbolizes her fear of death, which begins to diminish with the arrival of death. She is now aware that there is no more escape and Death's respectful and kind treatment of her helps her move forward as they take a ride in his carriage. It is a nostalgic setting that reminds the reader of the myth that once a person dies, they have a flashback of their life. The narrator sees his schoolyard, his grain fields, and the setting sun, all of which symbolize his childhood, adulthood, and old age, respectively. Unpersonified death is what the reader encounters in the last two stanzas. This is a grave that resembles a house, which could symbolize that once a person dies, their new home is actually their grave. However, for the narrator, the journey to this new home is a long journey, which seems to last centuries, although it actually lasts less than a day and she accepts it, because she is aware that it does not There's no going back once she accepts the invitation. ride in a carriage. The last poem that will be analyzed is I Heard a Fly Buzzing – When I Died. The basic premise is that she is thinking about how she died while her relatives, who were planning to take her inheritance, were surrounding her when suddenly a fly appeared in the room and disrupted thequiet passage of the narrator with his buzzing and the The moment she hears the “buzz”, she dies. In the first stanza we can see the narrator in the room calmly waiting for his death. Everything is quiet: the air, the spectators, everything except the fly. As in Because I Couldn't Stop to Die, the tone is calm, but here it is supernatural, almost robotic. However, a certain feeling of annoyance can be felt when reading the poem, which directly addresses the fly buzzing in the room. The second stanza also takes place in the room, but this time addresses the loved ones surrounding the narrator: they were suffering, but now they are also calming down, only increasing the "intensity" of calm in the room because the “last beginning” is approaching – his last breath is about to be inhaled and exhaled. The third and fourth stanzas are used to introduce the fly to the reader. The narrator betrays her will when suddenly the fly appears and puts an end to its peaceful passage. The fly is described in simplefragments, it is blue, uncertain and has a stumbling buzz. The fly's uncertainty contrasts directly with the narrator's certainty that his death is approaching. This is also reflected in much deeper symbolism - the narrator is certain that the light is near and his death will be peaceful, but the fly brings uncertainty with its stumbling buzz and the fact that it flies right between the narrator and the window of light at the exact moment of the narrator's death could symbolize that what happens next is actually uncertain. The fly can be seen as a symbol of death, but a very opposite kind of death to that of the previous poem. Because I couldn't stop to die. Here, even though the narrator is aware that her death is imminent and inevitable, she is still surprised and disconcerted when it occurs, thus eliminating the possibility of a peaceful death. The very buzzing of the fly could be interpreted as a brewing storm, a type of storm that usually arrives after a particularly good period of weather. At the same time, flies are found on the corpses of recently deceased people. Like vultures, flies begin to swarm around the near-dead person or animal, before eventually feasting on their flesh and leaving larvae in the body after death. When we take this into consideration, the relatives who surround the narrator are like flies: they wait for death to cry, but also to finally divide up the inheritance, as flies would divide up the corpse. Another strong symbol in the poem is the use of hyphens, which are an unusual symbol, being not a word, but a punctuation mark. This might mark the narrator's heavy breathing, as breathing becomes more and more difficult as death draws near, but the narrator nevertheless remains calm and still, refusing to become agitated – until the fly arrives . Then the use of hyphens increases significantly: in the first stanza there are four hyphens, the second stanza has five, the third only three, and then, with the emergence of the fly, the narrator begins to breathe faster and harder and the number of hyphens increases to seven. The poem also ends with a hyphen, perhaps symbolizing that the narrator did not expect to die there and had more things to say or even reinforcing the idea that this is not the end of their existence, but we do not know what will happen to them. because there are no more words after the hyphen and the poem ends. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized item now from our..