Death as a Common Theme in Dickinsons Five Poems - Essay Example

American literature Question one Death is a common theme in Dickinson’s five poems. They consist of “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died, “Because I could not stop for Death, “Behind Me dips – Eternity,” “My life had stood – a Loaded Gun –,” and “Some – Work for Immortality. In “I heard a Fly buzz when I died” the narrator talks from the grave. The poem talks about the real rites of dying and having the last moments. This gives us insights into existence of life after death. The poem is mainly about a death scenario in a room setting and metaphors are used to further emphasize the location more. She repeats the expression “in the Room,” in the first and second stanzas, ensuring the reader has not drifted away from this setting. Finally, the fly’s significance emphasizes the focus on the death process. The bug and its penalty eventually show the inability of the speaker to hold on to spirituality, faith and hope in facing death. The speaker participates in a death bed ritual of the near the end times and how people would draw near to God. She succeeds in willing away her objects but is diverted by the idea that none of her is “assignable” and by this meaning her spirit and soul. Her interruption by the fly also symbolizes the physical aspects of death, the rotting composition of the corpse while physicality also distracts her from her final revelation, and the poet still gives us hope for life after death. Similarly in “Because I could not stop for Death,” death is personified. The narrator is fearless when Death picks her up in his carriage but sees it as an act of kindness, since she was too busy for him (sparknotes.com). It is stressed in stanza one that the carriage holds only the two of them, doubly so since there’s a rhyme in “held” and “ourselves” and this makes the narrator to simply relinquish her life and its contents. The poet clearly states; “For His Civility”, she puts away her “labor” and her “leisure,” here she is using metonymy to embody another alliterative word, her life. In stanza two it is revealed that life is not so pleasant, as this slow carriage ride with what we see as they go. In the next, we see a more conservative vision of death “things become more sinister, the speakers dress……”the coldness here is an image of the grave as home , may not be ultimate and this leads to the last stanza which ends with immortality. The narrator can still feel with pleasure the moment of understanding, that death was immortality, for she “surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity – By finishing with “Eternity –,” the poem in itself ratifies this eternity, straggling out into life that is endless. Consequently In “Behind Me dips – Eternity” she presents death is life that is the split in the continuous, endless dark immortality. Her life, her personality, is just the thing that averts an uninterrupted endlessness, but with the logic she makes of “Eternity” and “Immortality” pressing on her all through the poem, this feels like a jinx, and to a certain extent like an important life which has any consequence on the world, and her selection of the clinical word “Term” to describe it emphasizes this. Repetition is used to make her way of describing things look less significant, since in repetition, words lose their power. For instance “Midnight,” ,“Himself” in the second stanza, and “Miracle” She throws doubt on her description of “Immortality,” by extricating it from herself, and making it an ordinary assumption, “they say” and by describing Christ with an inner rhyme that highlights vacancy, “Son of None.” This uncertain description of the afterlife is pursued by the line “’Tis Miracle before Me – then –,” but the “then” makes this statement uncertain thus though the narrator appear certain of her position on the afterlife, and death is shown harmoniously, with many alliteration and rhyming, “Death but the Drift of Eastern Gray”, “Dissolving into Dawn away”, this shows uncertainty of afterlife. In “My life had stood a Loaded Gun –,”A metaphor is used twice to mean two different things, first, “Master” which is God, and so, picked up by God, the narrator becomes his marksman. She is a defender in accomplishing her task, shares his voice, acts only at his submitting, and is in some way enduring. Second, master is lover. The narrator gets authority when she is recognized by the lover, and taken away by him. In the next stanza they are mingled; they are “We,” she becomes his voice and keeper. Her guard to him though it is much of violence. In stanza five the two are almost alike, “Yellow Eye,” a very human trait, implies the gun’s explosions. The poem shows how life and death are engaged and how life cannot be present with no death. Finally in “Some Work for Immortality” she talks about working for immortality which she implies to be working to make great work that will help after the person who created it had died and this is portrayed as what the “gifted,” the “insightful” do. The substitute is to work for money, and this is symbolized as “stock broker” He puts on riches, definitely, though it is only “The Bullion of Today,” and will be valueless after death, in terms of verdicts in life after death. The “Beggar” who knows better, possibly the poet, aims for something better, something long-term, but it is a work that gives the person doing it nothing until in the afterlife (helium.com). In conclusion I feel the idea in Dickinson’s poems could be respected after her death, or her way of life be satisfied in an afterlife, was certain to give big comfort at the least and perhaps great inspiration. Question two Whiteman in his preface to leaves of grass uses a number of literary devices and hence achieves his goal. While written in free verse, some sections of the poem are the iambic meter approach and because iambics closely imitate the patterns of natural speech and are persuasive. He uses catalogs here to indicate the size of types of citizens, conditions, or things in the poem and this shows his endless powers, ability to cycle through hundreds of images while avoiding repetition while producing astounding variety and newness. He also uses anaphora, which employs repetition of each word in each phrase. For instance he uses it to imitate biblical syntax and this gives his work a weighty epic feeling. In “Beat! Beat! Drums” he uses symbols throughout the poem to show clearly that there is a requirement for all those who are capable to do so, stop all other less significant dealings and engage in the cause at hand. It is clear that the poem is referring to a war because of the two main symbols, the drums and bugles. Traditionally drums and bugles are used in the procession into battle. Both symbolize the common cause and set the poet to his goal. In “Cavalry Crossing a Ford” He uses the 5 first-person as the filter through which his poem is conveyed". Alternatively he relates the scene in a reporting way, impartially and without a judging tone which shows the image of it presenting the image of the topic hence succeeds in achieving his goal. “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”; he uses a language that follows a similar shift. The first stanza is filled with exhortations and rhetorical devices and by the end much of the fun is done away with. He uses much symbolism in dramatizing the feeling of loss and brings home the subject. Question three Part one Emily Dickinson was acknowledged for writing a good deal of poems on the focus of mortality and these poems are not an exemption. The common characteristics the poems have are that they are all touched on life and death. In “World is not a conclusion” she says “The world is not a conclusion, a Species stands beyond, Invisible, as music” Species here has been capitalized by and this show some form of foresight. It amuses in some way since in our time we do not consider human beings to be invisible still after death, might be because we have never had such a thought about life and death. Similarly in “I felt a funeral in my brain”, she talks about a situation in her mind, was clearly afraid of dying, or maybe very interested in what would happen to her after death (poets.org). It created a picture to explain life after death in a way that could relieve her fear, such as portraying a funeral in her head, with a few individuals carrying the casket with "lead boots" (Dickinson).In “There’s a slant of light” also we see a painful change with improved side implied all through the poem. Conversely in the second stanza the transformation ends thus leaves the day much closer to death. And with the last word in the poem, “yet death is balanced closely with life,” as is shown by the reality that “death” rhymes with “breath,” a clear symbol for life, previously in the stanza, “so even this death is not purely negative” Similarly in “Success is counted sweetest” the last two stanzas reveal one last, more comprehensive metaphor. Here she has taken us to a battlefield, and compares the viewpoints of those winning and those losing .He also implies that the soldiers in the army that wins do not just feel the same appreciation of the victory as those who lose but they cannot truly understand what it is. The soldiers left “defeated” and “dying” on the field of the battle still as they had to listen to the other side’s celebrating their victory. Here she talks about death again and generally the difficulties faced in life and also the human nature. Part two Yes. For instance in When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” talks about death and expresses the whole process of the funeral, “the coffin has now reached the end of the journey. It passes the visions, the song of the hermit bird and the “tallying song”………the dead I loved so well” Whitman here dramatizes the feelings of loss and this gives a picture of a funeral. Similarly in “I felt a funeral in my brain”, Dickinson talks about a situation in her mind, was clearly afraid of dying, or maybe very interested in what would happen to her after death. It created a picture to explain life after death in a way that could relieve her fear, such as portraying a funeral in her head, with a few individuals carrying the casket with "lead boots" (sparknotes.com). Works Cited Shore”, Blue Ontario’s. "Spark Notes: Whitman’s Poetry." Spark Notes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. . Poets.org Guide to Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass- Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More." Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. . Ray, Bremen. "Poetry analysis: Beat! Beat! Drums! - Blow! Bugles! Blow! By Walt Whitman - by Bremen Ray - Helium." Helium - Where Knowledge Rules. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Nov. 2012. . Read More