Emily Dickinson

Melanie Freeman
English 48B
March 17, 2009
Emily Dickinson

Many of the details regarding Emily Dickinson's life remain a mystery today because of her introverted, reclusive lifestyle. Not published until four years after her death, Dickinson was not recognized as the influential poet she was during her own lifetime. Her unique use of structure, punctuation, and subject matter has had a strong influence on poets and writers throughout history. Dickinson spent the majority of her adult life writing from within her room in her parents home. The reason for her self inflicted isolation remains unknown today and has been a subject heavily scrutinized by many scholars. Although many questions about Emily Dickinson are still present today, it is clear that she is one of the greatest, most complex American poets and one whose poetry offers unlimited interpretations.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes -
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, '
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round -
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought -
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone-

This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow-
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go-

Reflection:
This poem is clearly reflective of Dickinson's fascination with both nature and with death. Here Dickinson describes the physicality of freezing to death as well as the emotional "letting go" that follows. Although Dickinson is obviously not describing her own death, her ability to recreate the hardening sensation is very realistic. In Dickinson's own life she lost many of her close friends and family members to deadly diseases and it is as if she has experienced a sort of death of a portion of her own life with the passing of those who are close to her.
The overall sensation of this poem is a feeling of calcification. The metaphors comparing human organs such as nerves and hearts to tombs and stone creates the image of the life leaving ones body. The "Hour of Lead" Dickinson describes is the slow surrender of a person's body to hypothermia and eventual death.
In the third stanza, Dickinson writes, "Remembered, if outlived" to imply that speaker has experienced near death but is not writing from the grave. Perhaps Dickinson has manifested her own pain and grief into this poem to explain how deeply she has comprehended what death is. It seems as if by locking herself in her room for years, Dickinson has had the opportunity to deeply contemplate what the sensation of death feels like and recreate it metaphorically in her own poetry.
It is also interesting to note that Dickinson refers to the feeling of death as "formal". This implies Dickinson's respect for death itself. By seeing death as "formal" and "ceremonious" Dickinsion expresses that perhaps she does not fear death at all. Death is portrayed as the most intensely emotion moment of ones life and one that is highly regarded, not feared.
Although Dickinson has been described as a "death obsessed spinster" (74) with a negative conotation, I do not believe her fascination with death is necessarily from a morbid view. By being able to invest so many hours into exploring the emotional and physical experience of death, Dickinson has been able to describe death as through she has experienced it. A feat that is unimagainable for many people.