Death in American Literature

The theme death has always played a crucial role in literature. Death surrounds us and our everyday life, something that we must adapt and accept. Whether its on television or newpaper, you'll probobly hear about the death of an individual or even a group. Most people have their own ideas and attitude towards it, but many consider this to be a tragic event due to many reasons. For those who suffered greatly from despair, living their life miserably and hopelessly, it could actually be a relief to them. Death effects not only you, but also those around you, while some people may stay unaffected depending on how they perceive it.

Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both

To begin with, both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson spoke about not only a person dying, but the people who were left to live through that person’s

“Afraid! Of whom am I afraid? Not Death – for who is He?” (F345). Dickinson, on the other hand, was not shaken by the thought of death, but rather welcomed it. Dickinson’s poetry not only portrayed death as nothing to fear, but it also counterbalanced society’s disdain for death. In one of Dickinson’s most popular poems, she writes “Because I could not stop for death- he kindly stopped for me” (F479). Culture typically sees death as an unwelcome end that everyone must face, but her poetry depicts death as being kind enough to halt its progress to accommodate her. Why is Emily Dickinson’s poetry so in love with death? Death is the only reliable constant (Ottlinger, 42). “All but Death, Can be adjusted Dynasties repaired – Systems – settled in the Sockets – Citadels – dissolved – Wastes of Lives – resown with Colors By Succeeding Springs – Death – unto itself – Exception – is exempt from Change -” (F789). Perhaps the harshest aspect of her poetry’s death is that after it has taken another soul, life moves on simply

During the 1800, when death was very prevalent and the most talked about topic on the planet, considering all the literal hundreds of plagues and harsh famines that threatened the population on each continent, a writer emerged with a vivid idea and perception of the insane world that she lived in and the loss that she faced in her life. That writer was none other than Emily Dickinson, the lovely Belle of Amherst who was essentially a recluse who wrote of the sorrows that precede after subjection to social ostracism and the pain that it evokes. She strategically manipulated her words and diction to evoke a strong passion about her craft and her life overall during her time. She wrote of things like the great tragedies

Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.

Regardless of race, caste, religion, or age, every human has wondered about the one fact of life that unifies us all: What is death? Both poems, “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood and “Because I could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson share a common subject of death. Using figurative language, both poems illustrate distinct takes on a similar topic.

When so much of one’s life is left up to chance, it is nice to know that one can find certainty in death. Whereas life can be moulded to perfection and death is a guarantee, there is no way to tell what one will face following death. There are millions of different cultures, religions, and individual beliefs pertaining to the afterlife, but a definitive answer will never be known. The works of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson express two very unique interpretations of death and what follows. Both Whitman’s and Dickinson’s views of death include an idea of an afterlife, or of a continuation of the soul post death, but where Whitman welcomes the idea of demise without a trace of fear and his overall view of death is more mystical, Dickinson has a negative view of death and, at times, questions the possibility of an afterlife entirely.

One of the prevalent themes of Emily’s work is death. Since she wrote about her inner world and troubles, death as a theme could not be avoided. Emily Dickinson had to face the losing friends to death. Several deaths of family members, including her mother, father and a nephew helped contribute to the theme in her poetry. These events affected her health but she found a way to cope with the idea of death with her poetry. She developed an attitude towards death, seeing it as a transition from mortality to immortality. She accepted its inevitability and tried to make

The three authors, Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Bradstreet, and Emily Dickinson, had poems in which they explored the common theme of death. Their unique views on death, as reflected in their poems, tells us of the different ways people looked at death during their respective times. In this essay, I will explore and explain three poems of Edgar Allan Poe, and one from Anne Bradstreet and Emily Dickinson respectively, and then compare the differences between the three authors.

Emily Dickinson concentrates many of her poems on the theme of death, predominantly her own. These “poems about death confront its grim reality with honesty, humor, curiosity, and above all a refusal to be comforted (“Emily Dickinson 1830-1886” 1659). While this was not an out of the ordinary topic during the American Romantic era, Dickinson seemed near obsessive in her focus. Additionally, Dickinson seems questionable in her thoughts on religion, another theme popular during the American Romantic era. Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for death” and “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” both explicitly examine the concept of death, the afterlife, and the author’s obsession with the melancholy.

Death. Something we all know is coming, but still fear. If you asked me a year ago I would say that the seminar I’m least likely to take is ‘Zombies, Victims and Other Corpses: Mediating Death in Popular Culture.’ The course description says that the main idea for this course is “examining contemporary visual media images of death and dead bodies, comparing and assessing these with respect to religious, psychological, sociological, political, and biological perspectives on death.” In general, the class was to allow students to compare the different viewpoints on death. However, death for me was just one thing, desolation. This day last year the individual who was closet to me passed away, my grandma. I was left lonely and enraged that cancer

Ms. Dickinson seemed very at ease with death as if it were but another point of our existence. In her later works she concentrated more on death because her own personal life was marked by a succession of deaths, loosing those that she was close to and these events in her life caused her to write about death as if it

Two of Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died” and “Because I could not stop for Death” are both written about life’s stopping point, death. Although the poems are written by the same poet, both poems view death in a different manner. Between the two poems, one views death as having an everlasting life while the other anticipates everlasting life, only to realize it does not exist. While both poems are about death, both poems also illustrate that the outcome of death is a mysterious experience that can only be speculated upon with the anticipation of everlasting life.

Emily Dickinson once said, “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” Some people welcome death with open arms while others cower in fear when confronted in the arms of death. Through the use of ambiguity, metaphors, personification and paradoxes Emily Dickinson still gives readers a sense of vagueness on how she feels about dying. Emily Dickinson inventively expresses the nature of death in the poems, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)”, “I Heard a fly Buzz—When I Died—(465)“ and “Because I could not stop for Death—(712)”.