The Theme Of Death In Emily Dickinson's Poetry

Emily Dickinson, a famously known American poet, was someone who seemed fascinated when it came to the matter of death. Dickinson was so engulfed over the thought and perspective of death, that the poems and letters she left behind even included poems over her own death. Her engrossment with such a theme gives her poems a unique twist of a taste, and provides the audience insight to the author’s mind after not being left with much of the author themselves. Her obsession of death is portrayed throughout most of her famously recognized poems, but, the theme of death seems to outshine in the following: “Because I could not stop for Death,” “I Heard a Fly Buzz,” and “I Died for Beauty- But was scarce.”
Although Dickinson lived most of her young teenage life confined in her room, it is known that Dickinson lived next door to a town cemetery. She was a …show more content…
Emily gives Death human like qualities, personification, which shows a way that Death seems to be the only companion she believed to have had when she seeked for comfort. In the poem, Emily describes Death as a “kindly” behaved gentleman that gives a “leisure” ride in “the carriage held but just ourselves.” This makes it seem as if Dickinson had a sort of loving admiration towards Death. The poem gives an insight into the way Emily visualized afterlife as we see that the speaker is dead and they are a sort of spirit reflecting upon the day of passing. Dickinson also repeats the phrase “We passed” as inferring in a way that this was all a routine of her usual life as they go through the “school”, “The Fields of Gazing Grain”, and the “Setting Sun.” The “quivering and chill” reminds the reader over death due to the coldness usually felt as a part of death. In the poem the speaker seems not to be frightened and sees death as a guide to what seems to be eternity after life as mentioned in the last