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Essay: Emily Dickinson – sadness in her poems

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  • Subject area(s): Literature essays
  • Reading time: 3 minutes
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  • Published: 18 January 2022*
  • File format: Text
  • Words: 850 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 4 (approx)

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Let me tell you why Emily Dickinson has reasons to be show sadness in her poem, “I Measure Every Grief I meet” “She wonders if they find life painful and a constant effort” (Chase) Chase probably has a feeling that Dickinson was struggling when she wrote this poem and that could be a reason why she said that. One of her lines in this poem is “I wonder if it hurts to live” (Dickinson, “I Measure Every Grief I Meet”). This quote from the poem is showing how Dickinson finds life to be hard, she thinks wonders how life is painful. Dickinson was probably really sad and had maybe gone through some rough things growing up, this quote shows how Dickinson really thinks about life. “This does not bother her though for any kind of grief is grief, and she finds comfort in the idea that she is not alone”(chase) Chase means that Dickinson is already so hurt that this grief doesn’t affect her anymore and it is pretty much just a permanent feeling Dickinson has in her. “And though I may not guess the kind correctly yet to me A piercing Comfort” (Dickinson, “I Measure Every Grief I Meet”). Dickinson is very sad and is in pain because she has no comfort and the comfort she does have is a bad kind that she doesn’t like, she calls it a Piercing confort. In addition Dickinson’s poems have one common thing, and that is that they are sad when she writes these poems she is writing them from past experience or has feelings she doesn’t like to talk about and instead uses it in her poetry, those reasons are why some of her poems seem so sad.
Emily Dickinson next poem is similar In “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”. “She sees Death as kind and gentlemanly, readily getting into his carriage to journey to destinations unknown” (Frank). Frank makes a very good point because Dickinson seems very sad and is constantly hinting at how death is her only way out of it. “Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me”. (Dickinson “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”) Dickinson can be saying she has had some experience with death and she knows what the feeling of death is like maybe because she has lost a loved one or someone close to her. She stops and waits for him knowing she can’t do anything about it.“Is the speaker losing her worldly spatial sense with the onset of death”(Frank) since Dickenson is getting older things are getting harder and harder and she isn’t making much sense anymore because of it she might have been losing her mind when she was writing this poem. “tis Centuries and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads Were toward Eternity” (Dickinson “Because I Could Not Stop For Death) dickenson is finding days are going faster and death is going to come sooner as her days are getting shorter and shorter now all she can do is wait for him. Dickinson next poem is the strangest one, Dickinson’s poem talks about her experience in loss and death once more
Finally in “I Felt A Funeral In My Brain” a poem which she talks about death again but for the last time. “A disaster has befallen the scene” (Spacey) Spacey talks about how the disaster that has struck was Dickinson’s death she was accepting it and that is why he said that. Dickinson was basically dead inside “I Felt A Funeral In My Brain and hit a World, at every plunge And Finished knowing then” (Dickinson “I Felt A Funeral In My brain”) Dickinson was living but felt dead on the inside she was sad and maybe depressed writing these poems she felt nothing which is why she had felt A Funeral In Her brain she was living but with no emotion or feeling, almost like a zombie. “the speaker can feel the silence and knows that the Mourners have been seated for the funeral And when they all were seated”(Spacey) Spacey is saying that Dickinson was able to feel her time coming which is why she accepted it by having a “funeral” in her head. “And when they all were seated A Service, like a Drum Kept beating beating till I thought My Mind was going Numb(Dickinson “I Felt A Funeral In My brain”) Dickinson speaks of how she felt. When she wrote “they all were seated A Service”(Dickinson “I Felt A Funeral In My brain”) she’s saying that she was getting ready for her death the service is her saying goodbye and getting ready to be taken to the afterlife.
Emily Dickinson’s poems “I Measure Every Grief I Meet” “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” and “I Felt A Funeral In My Head” all portray sadness through relation. Quotes from her poem are what help decide why Emily Dickinson poems all portray sadness through relations.
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