Enigma 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 a
cemetery is probably an apt description of this setting.
The slant of
light is used to portray a heavenly beam that falls on the earth
and brings a
gloomy feeling with it. It could be the finger of God beckoning to
the
deceased to come to the heavenly abode or a divine path showing him the
road
to heaven. However, the light possesses a sort of weightiness:
"That
oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes-". This heaviness in
the
light may refer to the undecipherable feelings that one has, when you
lose
someone close to you. The second and third stanzas of the poem bring out
the
true profundity of these mixed emotions. "Furthermore, both light and
air
are portrayed as symbolic of God, so that they become agents through whom
God
imposes His Heavenly Hurt upon the speaker, or maims her with His
imperial
affliction" (Griffith 27). The "Heavenly Hurt" may be
described
as the deep sorrow and pain that one feels when faced by the death
of one's near
and dear ones. The hurt is not physical, but emotional and
psychological. It is
probably deep within the speaker's heart "Where the
Meanings, are-".
For, when someone is lost in love, deeply hurt or
excessively happy, it is hard
to describe what one exactly feels or
understand where exactly these feelings
are coming from. "She still cannot
pinpoint the source of her anxiety. It
comes quietly, seemingly 'Sent us of
the Air-' . . ." (GaleNet LRC). Coming
back to the setting of the cemetery,
we can envision the speaker standing a
short distance away from the grave
watching the procession on its way. She
beholds before her the entire
landscape as she watches the mourners approaching.
She captures the
solemnity and motionlessness of death by implying that time
appears to stop
for death. "When it comes, the Landscape listens- /
Shadows-hold their
breath-" What Dickinson is trying to say is that death
is an irrefutable fact
of life. It comes to everyone (as Horace says) and the
stagnancy of time
revealed in the quote above is only a depiction of her
thoughts. Dickinson
brings the reader face to face with reality. 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,
Dickinson provides a new insight into this by describing nature as the
force
that brings death to its subjects when the time has come. "As Nature
bring
their weight of pain to bear upon the speaker, they are shown to have
injured
and oppressed with a conscious will" (Griffith 28). She describes
to the
reader the crude side of nature: the reality of life and the suddenness
of
death. Contrary to common belief, "Mother Nature" is not quite
described as a
loveable and caring person. " . . . Poets have grown
accustomed to thinking
of Nature as a cuddly companion . . . Emily Dickinson's
Nature is no less
personal or dynamic than this - and no less a Nature read by
the light of
pathetic fallacy. It is simply that she sees as tigers what others
have
mistaken for pets" (Griffith 28). This analogy of pets and tigers
describes
Dickinson's contrasting views on life, death and nature as compared to
other
historical and contemporary poets. Another poem that illustrates
this
viewpoint like no other is Because I Could Not Stop for Death . This
poem is an
example of the personification of Death as a character. However,
it shares an
obvious bond with There's a Certain Slant of Light in more ways
than one.
Certain beliefs and impressions that are embedded in
Dickinson's mind
permanently force themselves out in her poems and they can
be linked together if
one scrutinizes her disquieting verses. In this poem,
the author indicates that
Death is a kindly gentleman who stops by to
escort her into her afterlife.
"Because I could not stop for Death- / He
kindly stopped for me-" She
describes her slow ride towards what she deems to
be eternity "I first
surmised the Horses Heads / Were toward Eternity-" But,
as the poem goes
on, she realizes the truth and inevitability of death. Her
thoughts grow deep
and in the third stanza, she realizes that her life is
flashing past her eyes.
She sees children playing at school, "fields of
Gazing Grain" and the
"Setting Sun" that indicate the three stages of life:
childhood,
adulthood, and old age where one nears death. This poem also
brings out one of
Dickinson's typical thoughts on time and death. "Time
has stopped for her,
and the fields of grain do the gazing, not her"
(Semansky: GaleNet LRC).
The idea that the poet wishes to put across to
the reader is that she is in a
world where time has no reference. She is past
the land of the living where the
sun and the fields of grain are mere
participants in the process of supporting
life. She uses these elements of
nature to describe the stillness of time and
the affect death has on the
surroundings. As it grows "quivering and
chill-", the author describes the
inadequacy of her clothing and conveys
the coldness that surrounds death.
"This response suggests not only literal
coldness . . . but also the
emotional coldness that occurs when approaching
one's own death" (Semansky:
GaleNet LRC). The setting that the poet has
managed to set very effectively
is the approach to death and eternal
nothingness. 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.
Her chariot-ride is
a slow one and as she draws to the climax of her journey,
the surroundings
become grayer, colder and gloomier indicating a dark end to a
colorful life.
As she approaches "A swelling of the Ground", which is
acceptably her grave,
she is struck by the purpose of the whole journey. Not for
the first time,
Dickinson's poetry portrays very successfully the inevitability
of death.
"The domestic nature of the grave's description and the fact that
there is no
door, only a roof (the coffin's lid), suggests that there is no
escape from
Death" (Semansky: GaleNet LRC). 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. The long, long
journey,
which she first thought was to Eternity, seems to have passed in flash.
" . .
. she finds the human's lot of the realization of death to be so
overwhelming
that it makes time stand still" (Joyner: GaleNet LRC).
Suddenly, in one
final burst, the reader is able to decipher the gist of the
poem. The author
now realizes that her suitor (Death) who so politely took her
away from her
home and from her life has deceived her. Dickinson herself
represents all of
mankind who believes that death brings with it some sort of
salvation either
in the form of heaven or some other divine abode. But, it is
all a façade!
"She has, therefore, apparently been tricked, seduced, and
then abandoned"
(Twayne's U.S. Authors). She conveys to the reader and to
the people of this
world that there is nothing to look forward to in death and
that all it leads
to is a void: an emptiness that lasts forever. Death is not a
release from a
life of hard work or some sort of salvation. It is cold
obliteration.
Dickinson portrays death as a harsh and crude force that is
uncompassionate
to human feelings and emotions. It strikes with deadly exactness
and brings
with it an envelope of grief that suffocates even the hardiest of
human
beings. It is the primary truth of life. If you live today, you will
die
someday. If not tomorrow, may be the day after. When the time of
reckoning
arrives, there is nothing that one can do to prevent one's own
destruction.
Bibliography
Dickinson, Emily Selected Poems New
York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1990
GaleNet Literature Resource Center
"Overview: There's a Certain Slant of
Light, by Emily Dickinson" GaleNet
Literature Resource Center. http://www.galenet.com
(10/19/99) Griffith, Clark
The Long Shadow: Emily Dickinson's Tragic Poetry
Princeton, New Jersey:
Princeton University Press, 1964 Joyner, Nancy Carol
"Because I Could Not
Stop for Death: Overview" GaleNet Literature
Resource Center.
http://www.galenet.com (10/19/99) Semansky, Chris "An
Overview of Because
I Could Not Stop for Death" GaleNet Literature Resource
Center.
http://www.galenet.com (10/19/99) Twayne's United States
Authors
"Personification of Death: Emily Dickinson Chapter 3: The Mortal
Life.
http://rosie.menlo.edu.
(10/16/99)