Emily Dickinson's Why-Do They Shut Me Out Of Heaven?

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

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.

In opposition to “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, Dickinson published her work of “I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I Died”. In this particular piece of literature, the author disbeliefs in an afterlife. In this poem, a woman is lying on bed with her family surrounding her, waiting for the woman to pass away. The woman, however, is anxiously waiting for “…the kings”, meaning an omnipotent being. Finally when the woman dies, her eyes or windows, as referred in the poem, “could not see to see “. When the woman passes away, she couldn’t see any angels or gods as she expected would be there, but instead, she is fluttered into nothingness. She isn’t traveling to an afterlife as she had expected to unlike in the poem of “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. The woman finds out that death is a simple end to everything.

Emily Dickinson was fascinated by death and immortality; in her poem "I Heard a Fly Buzz-- When I Died--" she reveals her insight on a shared but unknown experience. A speaker, who is describing his or her death from beyond the grave, narrates the poem, which can be interpreted with either heavily Christian in its symbolism, or as the literal description of the dying experience. Dickinson uses the poetry elements of symbolism, imagery and point of view to give us an ironic poem, about dying and the afterlife, which leaves the reader unsure of what's on the other side of death. There is a disagreement in the literary world over the meaning of the fly, its symbolism and relationship to the speaker in the poem (Ruby 139). Dickinson might have used the fly in order to showcase that the dying speaker was still aware of the physical world but his or her senses were fading as the body surrenders to death "With Blue--uncertain stumbling Buzz--" (Line 13).

Everyone has pondered about an afterlife whether they’re religious or not. Some people may ponder because they’re lonesome or because they’re simply curious. Both pieces describe the theme of death. In the poem “Going to Heaven!” by Emily Dickinson, it discusses the theme by using literary devices such as imagery and antithesis.

Analysis of I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died and Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson

First of all, Emily Dickinson wrote a myriad of poems about life, death, and even hinted at what she thought the afterlife entailed. In her poem, “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died,” Dickinson states “The stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air” (1059). This was her first hint to her view on death meant that stillness is the first aspect of death that a person endures. In the second quatrain of the poem, Dickinson says, “Breaths were gathering firm, For the last Onset—when the King be witnessed in the Room,” hinting that this “King” could be God or another form of religious entity that is thought to appear to one as death is happening (1059). The Christian religion was the main religion believed by the people living in her area for the duration of her lifetime.

Emily Dickinson is frightened of death and the unknown life after it. To release her

Dickinson starts to form the image in her by brining her audience into “The Carriage” which held only “herself and Immortality” (3-4) Dickinson wants to begin to bring her reader into state of mind so they can understand her thinking. As a known recluse she must make an effort to invite her readers into her mind to take them on the journey known as death. She wants to build the image of what she believes death to be, and change how people think of the journey of death. As she continues her journey in the carriage with death, she describes how they “Passed the school/where children played” to “ the setting sun” (9-12) As she continues her ride with death, she continues to set the stage not only for her journey, but for the paradox between herself and the puritan faith on their ideas of death.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1836) is one of the greatest poets in American literature. Although she spent most of her life working in relative anonymity, her status rose sharply following her death and the subsequent publishing of much of her surviving work. Two of Dickinson’s most well-known poems are “Because I could not stop for Death—" and “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died”. I say known as because Dickinson never actually gave her poems proper titles. For this reason, the first lines of her poems have come to be used as a distinguishing reference. This paper will briefly analyze both poems in an attempt to both compare and measure their relative literary merits.

Her poems fixating on death and religion can be partitioned into four classes: those concentrating on death as could reasonably be expected extinction, those sensationalizing the topic of whether the spirit survives demise, those attesting a firm confidence in interminability, and those specifically treating God's worry with individuals' lives and fates. The very popular poem "I heard a Fly buzz — when I kicked the bucket" is frequently observed as illustrative of Emily Dickinson's style and states of mind. The principal line is as capturing an opening as one could envision. By depicting the snapshot of her passing, the speaker tells us that she has as of now died. Struggle amongst uncertainty and confidence poses a potential threat in "The

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)”.

Emily Dickinson a modern romantic writer, whose poems considered imaginative and natural, but also dark as she uses death as the main theme many times in her writings. She made the death look natural and painless since she wanted the reader to look for what after death and not be stuck in that single moment. In her poems imagination play a big role as it sets the ground for everything to unfold in a magical way. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. She turned increasingly to this style that came to define her writing. The poems are rich in aphorism and dense