The Lamentations of Emily Dickinson
By utilizing vivid images and specific diction, Emily Dickinson effectively portrays through her poetry the intense and confusing emotions that are evoked as a result of death. In poem # 1527 and poem # 341, Dickinson addresses the inevitability of death and its permanence as well as expresses her personal lamentations towards those she has lost. Such feelings of disbelief and incredulity pertaining to deaths permanence are apparent in Dickinson's poem # 1527. She begins this poem by stating, "Oh give it Motion- deck it sweet/ With Artery and Vein"(393). The image portrayed through these opening lines seems to imply that Dickinson is viewing a person that is no longer alive. By utilizing the word 'oh' to begin her expression of yearning for the deceased to be brought back to life, she successfully creates a dramatic and intense depiction of her despair. At a funeral, the deceased are typically dressed in their best attire and are often adorned with flowers. Unique to this traditional embellishment, Dickinson expresses her desire for the deceased to be adorned instead with "artery and vein". For it is with these elements that life is able to flourish, as they provide a means of transportation for the blood to circulate
The last lines of the poem describe the process of Dickinson's lamentation, as she writes, "First- Chill- then Stupor- then the letting go". The intensity of such emotion tends to dissipate with time, yet often leaves the mourner devoid of sensation or feeling. The word 'affiance', which means to betroth or engage, supports Dickinson's disbelieving state of mind. In poem # 1527 and poem # 341, Dickinson artfully conjures up the distressing and heart wrenching aspects of death that are universally felt by all who have ever loved and lost. Dickinson continues by stating, "The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,/ And Yesterday, or Centuries before?". Only after these emotions are felt is it possible to accept death and its inevitability, as Dickinson describes as the 'letting go'. They are also similar to a stone tomb that holds death by holding memories of the deceased, but they are unable to do anything more than remember. The word 'mechanical' that is used to describe the movement of people through life is effective in expressing the duality that occurs in living life with feeling opposed to living life without. The 'freezing person' that is collecting snow creates an image of the deceased buried beneath the grounds surface that winter has covered with a layer of snow. Through this statement, Dickinson seems to be drawing upon the Judeo-Christian religion of the creation myth. Through her vivid images and specific diction, Emily Dickinson effectively portrays the emotions that are evoked as a result of death in poem # 341. She is finding it difficult to accept the permanence of death, and is demanding from some unknown person or power to animate the deceased again with life. Although she is aware that the lips will remain motionless and fastened shut, she portrays her unequivocal desire to have the deceased defy the norms of death. Clay, in fact, is made up of a reddish-pink material, which could explain Dickinson's choice of diction as she calls dust a "pink stranger".
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