Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson and Death

Upon the first reading of Emily Dickinson's poem's I found them very hard to understand because of her unique style of writing. Eventually though I found myself comprehending the general theme of her poems. Emily has a large selection of poems about nature, creatures…. But one thing that I found she was really obsessed with was death and its consequences. Seeing death, as the ultimate source of awe, wonder, and endless questions, was life's most fascinating feature to Dickinson. From examining her poems of life and death, different states of consciousness, as a speaker from beyond the grave, confronting death in a journey and on the dividing line of life and death one can see that Dickinson refers to death as the final inevitable change.

In her poem “I felt a funeral in my head”, Dickinson is describing her own funeral I believe. This poem is unique because she speaks as though she is already dead. She hears the people come in and sit, she hears them lift the casket and look across her soul. She says “the heavens become a Bell” being an Ear. Whether it is death or insanity that opens up this vision to her. The speaker realizes that she is alone and totally free. Then like the planks supporting a coffin until it is dropped into the grave, the “bottom” drops out of reality. For the speaker anything is possible in a world that is absurd, where you can drop “down and down” and “hit a world, at every plunge.” So the conclusion to this poem is what not-knowing

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brings.

In my opinion “I heard a fly buzz--when I died” is a quiet strange poem. Because to most people death is supposed to be an experience of awe, it is the moment that the soul, departs the body. In this poem the watchers at the bedside wait for the moment when the “King” (whether God or death) “be witnessed” in the room. And the speaker assigns away everything but that which she expects God (her soul) or death (her body) to take. But what arrives instead, is neither God nor death but a fly, with uncertain buzz. The buzz takes up all of the perception, coming between the speaker and the “light” of day, of life…Then the “windows” (the eyes, the light that passes through the glass) “fail” and the speaker is left