Essay about Emily DIckinson

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Dickinson’s Idea on Nature of Suffering and Death Many of Emily Dickinson’s works revolve around human emotion and the great detail of the process of death. The abundance use of death or suffering symbolism takes the focus out of the present reality of the human life. However, the importance of Dickinson’s works consists of the nature of suffering and death and how both world, reality and eternal life, parallels each other for these subjects are uncontrollable by humans. Death is personified as a chauffeur or a gentleman in “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”. The speaker goes on a journey towards her final resting place willingly with death. Death “kindly” stops for her and as they slowly drive , the speaker has “put away” her “labor” and “leisure” for his “civility”. Death being described as “kind” suggests the unabashed feelings that the speaker holds towards him and her full compliance to leave behind her worldly life in realization that there is an eternal life. As a result of her willingness to let go and let nature or death take her away, she is able to rest at a peaceful place. After a long journey, Death has taken her to a “house” for her final stop instead of a remorse place like a graveyard. It also gives the impression that the speaker is comfortable with death and unafraid. This cause and effect implies that humans actions and reactions in the worldly life determines the wellness of the afterlife. It indicates that the resistance towards death is not going to do any justice for humans since it is relatively out of our control and death is a natural stage in the life cycle. Struggling against nature is an impossible battle to win because of our insignificance comparing to the great nature. In “The Bustle in a House”, the main focus is not on a personal death but on a death of a loved one. The speaker describes the situation and internal emotion when that loved one has passed away. Through the capitalization of certain words like “Bustle”, it signifies the commotion of the reaction of the speaker after the death. The melancholy tone is set by the third line with “solemnest of industries”, however, the spirit seems to be lifted up by the second stanza when the speaker decides to put the “love away” and it shall not be used again “until eternity”. The shift of tone and the optimism that arises to the speaker indicates the natural occurrence of brief suffering. The positive attitude that the speaker turns to in the second half portion of the poem shows the realization of the natural suffering that occurs in life is out of the human control and the speaker has accepted that fact by moving on. On the other side, Dickinson shows the opposite consequence in “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died-”. The poem describes the outside scene and atmosphere at the moment when someone dies. The speaker hears a fly “buzz” in the “stillness” of the room where her death lies. The buzzing of the fly is taunting and more prominent in the quietness of the room. The speaker is dying in the human world, but the fly represents the natural forces that appears during the time of death. It continues on with the description of the mourners and the room and as the speaker is ready to give up all her possessions: I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away What portion of me be Assignable - and then it was There interposed a Fly-

The fly reappeared and intrudes the calm moments of the speaker. The caesura between the words signifies the interposition of the fly that cuts off the peaceful state of mind of the speaker giving up all her “keepsakes”. Not only the fly gets in between the speaker’s train of thoughts, but it also gets in between the speaker and “the light”. As the speaker moves closer towards “the light”, the dirty image of the fly taints and blocks the purity of the brightness of the light. In this case, the fly symbolizes the misery of human life that is keeping humans from the state of bright
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