Enigma of Death

- An Insight into Dickinson's Portrayal of Death -

"Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor

man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings."

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65-8 B.C.)

Death eventually comes to everyone, and yet it is a phenomenon shrouded in mystery. Scholars and scientists try to understand it, philosophers pose theories and conclusions about it, artists try to capture it between streaks of paint across a canvas, while poets like Emily Dickinson explore it's meaning and influence through verse. Death is like an outward rush into the unknown where there is nothing recognizable and nothing to cling to. The unknown is always feared, and since nothing is known about death or an afterlife, people fear it. What Dickinson's poetry delves into is the undeniable power of death to detach one from life and the pain and sorrow that accompanies it like a dark cloud above it's head.

In There's a Certain Slant of Light , Dickinson uses nature as the backdrop for her description of death, and the elements to describe the silent pain that it brings with it. The poem appears to create some sort of setting for the reader in order to portray this. The sight of a funeral procession entering

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She looks back at her whole journey and sees how the colors of life depicted by the sun and the fields have now faded in to the gray gloom of the grave and its headstone. Her thoughts grow deep and in the third stanza, she realizes that her life is flashing past her eyes. However, it shares an obvious bond with There's a Certain Slant of Light in more ways than one. In this poem, the author indicates that Death is a kindly gentleman who stops by to escort her into her afterlife. But, Dickinson provides a new insight into this by describing nature as the force that brings death to its subjects when the time has come. While death is often ignored as a biological phenomena that does not influence one individual's daily life, nature is accepted as the creator that sustains life on this planet. But, it is all a façade! "She has, therefore, apparently been tricked, seduced, and then abandoned" (Twayne's U. The second and third stanzas of the poem bring out the true profundity of these mixed emotions. 1990

GaleNet Literature Resource Center "Overview: There's a Certain Slant of Light, by

Emily Dickinson" GaleNet Literature Resource Center. If you live today, you will die someday. She uses these elements of nature to describe the stillness of time and the affect death has on the surroundings.

Bibliography

Dickinson, Emily Selected Poems

New York: Dover Publications, Inc. This can be compared to the funeral procession in There's a Certain Slant of Light that slowly marches the dead towards his ultimate resting place.

Approximate Word count = 1649
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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