LITR 4232 American Renaissance

LITR 4232 2008 final exam

Answers to Question 5 (Student’s choice)

Nicole Bippen

Essay Question 5:  “Understanding Emily Dickinson’s Appeal” What makes her work so insightful and meaningful?

Emily Knew the Secrets of Death

            Emily Dickinson has always managed to captivate her readers by feeding them blunt lines that are not only insightful but meaningful as well.  “Emily Dickinson’s poetry was by definition, introspective.  She pondered things she did not understand such as belief in, or the benevolence of God, the beautiful and terrifying forces of nature, and unknowable death” (Daniel Davis).  Such ponderings have kept her work appealing, insightful, and have helped it survive the ages. 

            When I first came across Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death,” I was instantly captivated.  The language and the mystery of the piece led me to read it at least six more times before sitting back to ponder the meaning.  After analyzing the poem some, I realized that it appealed to me because Dickinson was touching on a topic that was very real and was something that nobody but God had control over: death.  “Because I could not stop for Death- He kindly stopped for me” were the two lines that helped set this concept into motion for me (2578). 

            The lines are mysterious but to the point; you cannot stop Death, it stops you.  It’s a haunting message that reflects back on our mortality and speaks to the human condition and addresses issues of attachment to one’s own life.  Nobody truly wants to die; we all just want to continue living.  Emily Dickinson addressed this by shoving the idea of death as an unstoppable force in her readers’ slack jawed faces. 

            With all the latest advances in science and medication, people traverse foolishly through their day believing that the miracle drugs they are taking will stall death.  Emily Dickinson knew that nothing stops death; this is evident throughout all of her work.  She also deals with how blindly we all travel through life by writing “We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain- We passed the Setting Sun- Or rather- He passed Us” alluding to the fact that life generally passes us by and it is not until our deathbed that we reach this realization (2578).

            According to Sandra, “[Dickinson] was unconventional, but her strength came from her poetry and she used it to deal with her problems.  She did not cloister herself for the cause of poetry, but most likely for other causes.”  Emily struggled to understand not only death but also God’s involvement in the process and sought to figure it out through poetry.  She explores God’s role in her poem “He fumbles at your Soul” which can be looked at from a religious standpoint.  Understanding God’s purpose in life and death could easily be one of the outside causes that Sandra suggests.

            Although Emily struggled with the concept of religion and God, she did choose to acknowledge His role in life as being the one who prepares you for passing.  Still clinging to the theme of death, Emily acknowledges the end of life by stating that God “Deals One –imperial Thunderbolt- That scalps your naked soul… [and then] The Universe –is still-“ alluding to death (2577).  For Emily, life and death are processes that we all must go through and God is in charge of both.  God decides when, how, why, where, and everything else in between.  Through poetry, Emily was likely seeking to understand this and explore it.          

            Dickinson’s acknowledgement of death as being an unstoppable and unpredictable force as well as the captivating and at times harsh language helps instill her message in the reader’s mind.  Using phrases like “Since then- ‘tis Centuries- and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity” not only work to keep the theme of Death coming when it wants, but also helps create a sense of passage within the reader (2578).  That powerful stanza makes the reader feel as if he or she is actually making the journey rather than just reading about it.

            Dickinson’s exploration of the role of God in one’s life and death also helps pull her readers deep into her work.  The blunt use of death as an inescapable force or process and the idea that God is in control of it all leaves a haunting visual reminder in her reader’s mind that almost creates a sense of urgency.  It is also a painful reminder of our own mortality.  Again, Emily is still playing with the basic concepts of mortality, death, and God.

            In conclusion, Emily understood that God “fumbles at your Soul... Before they drop full Music on… [and] scalps your naked soul” and that “because [we] could not stop for Death- He kindly stopped for [us]” alluding to God’s master control and death’s civility as well as inescapability.  Emily was unsure of a lot of things, but she was sure of the fact that God played some major role in our lives and that death would eventually come and nothing could change that.