Coldness in Emily Dickinson’s Death Poems
Outline
Thesis Statement: Emily Dickinson was haunted with death for most of her life. Reading through her
death poems, people may find that Emily ’s attitude toward death is ambiguous. However, whichever attitude she holds—negative or positive, she affirms that death is cold. In most of her poems, before death arrives, there will be some images of coldness. Coldness is the indication of death ’s coming in Dickinson’s mind.
I. The environmental influences on Emily Dickinson’s death belief.
1. Emily’s living environment and some misfortunes.
2. Emily’s contradictory psychology toward death.
II. The image of coldness in her poems concerning pessimistic attitude toward death
1. Negation of death
2. Image of coldness, indication
III. The image of coldness in her poems concerning her optimistic attitude toward death
1. Affirmation of death
2. Image of cold, symbol
Introduction
Most of Emily Dickinson’s poems are about three topics: love, nature and death. Among the death poems, her deep insights toward death are expressed vividly. It has been widely known that “Emily Dickinson held an ambivalent attitude toward death” [1]. Some scholars also mentioned that “winter is associated with death, and is seldom used as a positive and optimistic image” [2], meanwhile, “winter and snow always indicate the presence of death” [3]. Yet in this paper, it deals with the image of coldness in Emily Dickinson ’s death poems. At the same time coldness is not only a pessimistic symbol of the presence of death, but also an indication of the oncoming death in her optimistic death poems.
I. Emily Dickinson’s death belief
Emily was born into a Calvinist family, so she was deeply influenced by the belief of Calvinism. Calvinism with its doctrine of predestination and its pessimism pressured her during her childhood and adolescence and colored her works so that her basic tone was tragic…Her preoccupation with the subject of death amounted to an obsession so that about one third of her poems dwell on them [4] P97-98. In the meantime, she accepts the transcendentalism which adds her poems to the image of nature. Therefore the majority of Emily’s death poems are a combination of death immortality and nature. No doubt, Emily loved nature and this can be proved by her almost whole life ’s recluse. So she always connected nature with her death subjects. In addition coldness was an image which Emily preferred to use to describe death. At the same time, it seemed that life played a joke with her. During her life time two of Emily ’s admirable people died before her and this was a big shock to her, besides, “death seemed to happen often in the surrounding place where she lived. All these sad things added to her gloomy mediation ” [4] P98.
Even this, her attitude toward death is ambiguous. On the one hand, she accepts death and longs for death, because “death is immortality” [5]. This ambiguity was illustrated clearly in two of her typical death poems. One is Because I Could Not Stop For Death in light tone; the other one I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died in heavy tone. Still there are a great many other poems pour out Emily’s coldness image toward death.
Ⅱ. Coldness in her pessimistic death poem
In the poem I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died, Emily as a dying person described the experiencing of
death process. She vividly told readers what would happen in the last moment of life. Obviously the life after is uncertain because of the interposing of an annoyed fly.
There interposed a Fly—
With Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—
Between the Windows failed—and then
I could not see to see—[6] P307
Apparently in this poem one may find that Emily was really a careful poet. It is strange that some words which should be small letters in this poem are capitalized purposely by Emily such as “Fly, Blue, Buzz and Windows”. Probably Emily aims to use these words as symbols that Fly may represent Death; Buzz the call from death and Windows the heaven and Blue is not the superficial meaning of color. It is natural that at the end of this poem, “the windows failed means she could not see the light from heaven which indicates immortality. The ending sentence “I could not see to see—“uses a dash which means that though the poem has ended while the meaning not [1] .In this poem she clearly expresses her confusion about death and she perceived death in a pessimistic attitude.
At the beginning of the poem, the poet describes her state before her death. She mentions the stillness in the room, the weeping of her relatives and the assigning of her keepsakes. Suddenly she swerves to “the Fly” and “the Blue”. In Mr. Chang Yaoxin’s interpretation: “blue refers to the vague of the dying person ’s sigh t ” [6]P308. However, blue also can be interpreted in another way. The color blue is the representation of cold. It also means “of a person or part of the body looking slightly blue in color because the person is cold or can not breath easily” [7] P168. It is natural that when humans are going to die they will feel cold and the writer was just in the state of dying. Therefore “with Blue —uncertain stumbling Buzz—”can be paraphrased as “suddenly I felt cold and unclearly heard the slightly buzz. Then the closely following situation is the windows failed—and I could not see to see which shows I died. Here the word blue serves as a symbol of coldness indicating the oncoming death.
Coldness indicating death’s coming can be treated as a technique of Emily’s writing on death poems. “Still in the poem of Apparently with No Surprise , she compared frost to assassin. A tiny flower was mercilessly beheaded by frost” [2] .In this poem Emily involves death in nature. Frost here is the image of coldness. Reading the frost, people should sense that death will come next. It is true that the flower was next killed by the frost. Though a flower is not a person, it is an animate thing. The death of the flower can also be seen as an end of life. It is also said that “In Emily Dickinson’s poems, nothing is alive after touching ice, snow or frost [2]. And all of those are the image of coldness.
So from all above, it is clear that coldness foretells that death is approaching.
Ⅲ. Coldness in her optimistic death poem
It is natural that coldness is easy for people to associate with death, because people are afraid of death and coldness has been always the symbol of bad situations. However, in Emily ’s poem concerning her longing for death, the appearance of coldness is also the indication of death’s coming.
In the famous poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death, “Emily regards death as a special glory. It represents happiness which will bring hope to people. The moment of death ’s coming is the arrival of happiness ” [8]. Emily wrote: “Because I could not stop for death—He kindly stopped for me—…For His Civility —” [6]. The use of words show that Emily accepts death in a pleasure way and she has an optimistic attitude toward death for she believes that death means immortality. However, near the end of the poem the image of coldness also appears
Or rather—He passed us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, My Gown—
My Tippet—only tulle—
We pause before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground.
Apparently, “quivering ”, “chill ”, “Gossamer ” and “Tulle ” are expressions of coldness. Before the appearance of those cold images, Emily lively describes the kindness of death, while after they appear, the carriage pauses before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground, which she actually refers to a tome —the embodiment of death. It reveals that when coldness appears, it intends to tell others death will come next. Also in the poem “As Imperceptibly as grief, the disappearance of summer is a symbol of death [6] P309. At the end of this poem, Emily says “Our summer made her light escape/ Into the Beauty”. “Beauty ” means “heaven ” [4] P310. Though this poem is not completely a death poem, the summer ’s diminishing is a symbol of death. Emily believes the existence of heaven which expresses her positive attitude toward death. Still the end of summer signifies the weather will become colder and colder, so here coldness is also the indication of death’s coming.
Of course, not in every Emily ’s optimistic death poems, death comes after the appearance of the image of coldness. There are many death poems that coldness never appears, however, she never use adjectives of warm kind to describe death. Following is the illustration: “the graves look like
“Sweet —safe —house —/ Glad—gay —house ” (216) [3]. In this poem, Emily use adjectives “sweet, safe, glad and gay” rather than warm to describe a tome which shows that Emily thinks death is happy but not warm. Also in this poem:
How good to be safe in tome
Where nature’s temper can not reach
Nor the vengeance ever comes. [3]
Wang Xinxin--the teacher of Inner Mongolia Normal University mentions that “in this poem Emily believes tome is a place of warmth and safety [3].
However, reading it carefully, one may find that this poem is describing the situation after death. “It is good to be safe in tome” means that the person has died ad has been buried. This poem deals with Emily ’s belief of immortality which is situation after death not before death while this paper deals with coldness as an indication of death which is the situation before death. So there is no argument of whether the image of coldness is the indication of death’s coming.
Conclusion
Emily ’s whole life was obsessed with love, nature and death. Death took an important position in Emily ’s belief. Among all Emily’s death poems, her attitudes toward death could be divided into two parts, one part was her negation of death, the other affirmation of death. In most of her death poems, the image of coldness was a device she often used to depict death. The appearance of cold image indicates the oncoming of death. Even in her affirmation and acceptance of death, the cold image is stilled followed by death ’s coming. Death is cold in Emily’s mind, though she sometimes believes that death is immortality. As a matter of fact, Emily’s ambivalent views of death are her manifestation of her being not want to die. If she really longs for death, there won’t be so many poems describing her horror and hatred to death. In her real life, Emily longs for love and appreciates nature, so in her bottom heart, it is not always cold. She is a combination of two sides: one side of her brims over with love, the other is full of uncertain toward death. Such is Emily—an observant and sensitive woman poet. In American literature history she is not a meteor just shooting though the sky but a star shining there forever.
Bibliography
[1] 陈莉莎. 上帝·死亡·永生. 湖南：湘潭大学社会科学学报，2002（4）..
[2] 郑海霞，耿卫玲. 艾米莉·狄金森诗中的冬天. 华北水利电学院学报，2008（1）.
[3] Wang, Xinxin. The Ambiguity of Death in Emily Dickinson ’s Poetry. Journal of Inner Mongolia
Normal University (5), 2006.
[4] Chang, Yaoxin. A Survey of American Literature. Tianjin: Nankai University Press, 2003.
[5] 侯斌，丁亚丽. 对死亡的矛盾心理. 宜宾学院学报，2008（3）.
[6] Li, Yi yi & Chang, Yaoxin. Selected Readings in American Literature. Tianjin: Nankai University
Press, 1991.
[7] AS, Hornby. Oxford Advanced Learner ’s English-Chinese Dictionary(6th Edition). Oxford
University Press.
[8] Sun, jia. 黑与白：艾米莉·狄金森诗中对待死亡的变化. 南方论刊，2007（5）.
[9] 谭锴. On Death Theme and Artistic Transmission of Emily Dickinson ’s Poetry. Post Graduate
Program College of Literature. Central China University. 2006.
[10] 徐高楠. 艾米莉·狄金森的死亡情结. 威海：考试周刊，2007.
[11] 刘其刚. 困惑的心灵—对比分析艾米莉·狄金森两首死亡诗. 济南：科技信息.2007(12).
Coldness in Emily Dickinson’s Death Poems
Outline
Thesis Statement: Emily Dickinson was haunted with death for most of her life. Reading through her
death poems, people may find that Emily ’s attitude toward death is ambiguous. However, whichever attitude she holds—negative or positive, she affirms that death is cold. In most of her poems, before death arrives, there will be some images of coldness. Coldness is the indication of death ’s coming in Dickinson’s mind.
I. The environmental influences on Emily Dickinson’s death belief.
1. Emily’s living environment and some misfortunes.
2. Emily’s contradictory psychology toward death.
II. The image of coldness in her poems concerning pessimistic attitude toward death
1. Negation of death
2. Image of coldness, indication
III. The image of coldness in her poems concerning her optimistic attitude toward death
1. Affirmation of death
2. Image of cold, symbol
Introduction
Most of Emily Dickinson’s poems are about three topics: love, nature and death. Among the death poems, her deep insights toward death are expressed vividly. It has been widely known that “Emily Dickinson held an ambivalent attitude toward death” [1]. Some scholars also mentioned that “winter is associated with death, and is seldom used as a positive and optimistic image” [2], meanwhile, “winter and snow always indicate the presence of death” [3]. Yet in this paper, it deals with the image of coldness in Emily Dickinson ’s death poems. At the same time coldness is not only a pessimistic symbol of the presence of death, but also an indication of the oncoming death in her optimistic death poems.
I. Emily Dickinson’s death belief
Emily was born into a Calvinist family, so she was deeply influenced by the belief of Calvinism. Calvinism with its doctrine of predestination and its pessimism pressured her during her childhood and adolescence and colored her works so that her basic tone was tragic…Her preoccupation with the subject of death amounted to an obsession so that about one third of her poems dwell on them [4] P97-98. In the meantime, she accepts the transcendentalism which adds her poems to the image of nature. Therefore the majority of Emily’s death poems are a combination of death immortality and nature. No doubt, Emily loved nature and this can be proved by her almost whole life ’s recluse. So she always connected nature with her death subjects. In addition coldness was an image which Emily preferred to use to describe death. At the same time, it seemed that life played a joke with her. During her life time two of Emily ’s admirable people died before her and this was a big shock to her, besides, “death seemed to happen often in the surrounding place where she lived. All these sad things added to her gloomy mediation ” [4] P98.
Even this, her attitude toward death is ambiguous. On the one hand, she accepts death and longs for death, because “death is immortality” [5]. This ambiguity was illustrated clearly in two of her typical death poems. One is Because I Could Not Stop For Death in light tone; the other one I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died in heavy tone. Still there are a great many other poems pour out Emily’s coldness image toward death.
Ⅱ. Coldness in her pessimistic death poem
In the poem I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died, Emily as a dying person described the experiencing of
death process. She vividly told readers what would happen in the last moment of life. Obviously the life after is uncertain because of the interposing of an annoyed fly.
There interposed a Fly—
With Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—
Between the Windows failed—and then
I could not see to see—[6] P307
Apparently in this poem one may find that Emily was really a careful poet. It is strange that some words which should be small letters in this poem are capitalized purposely by Emily such as “Fly, Blue, Buzz and Windows”. Probably Emily aims to use these words as symbols that Fly may represent Death; Buzz the call from death and Windows the heaven and Blue is not the superficial meaning of color. It is natural that at the end of this poem, “the windows failed means she could not see the light from heaven which indicates immortality. The ending sentence “I could not see to see—“uses a dash which means that though the poem has ended while the meaning not [1] .In this poem she clearly expresses her confusion about death and she perceived death in a pessimistic attitude.
At the beginning of the poem, the poet describes her state before her death. She mentions the stillness in the room, the weeping of her relatives and the assigning of her keepsakes. Suddenly she swerves to “the Fly” and “the Blue”. In Mr. Chang Yaoxin’s interpretation: “blue refers to the vague of the dying person ’s sigh t ” [6]P308. However, blue also can be interpreted in another way. The color blue is the representation of cold. It also means “of a person or part of the body looking slightly blue in color because the person is cold or can not breath easily” [7] P168. It is natural that when humans are going to die they will feel cold and the writer was just in the state of dying. Therefore “with Blue —uncertain stumbling Buzz—”can be paraphrased as “suddenly I felt cold and unclearly heard the slightly buzz. Then the closely following situation is the windows failed—and I could not see to see which shows I died. Here the word blue serves as a symbol of coldness indicating the oncoming death.
Coldness indicating death’s coming can be treated as a technique of Emily’s writing on death poems. “Still in the poem of Apparently with No Surprise , she compared frost to assassin. A tiny flower was mercilessly beheaded by frost” [2] .In this poem Emily involves death in nature. Frost here is the image of coldness. Reading the frost, people should sense that death will come next. It is true that the flower was next killed by the frost. Though a flower is not a person, it is an animate thing. The death of the flower can also be seen as an end of life. It is also said that “In Emily Dickinson’s poems, nothing is alive after touching ice, snow or frost [2]. And all of those are the image of coldness.
So from all above, it is clear that coldness foretells that death is approaching.
Ⅲ. Coldness in her optimistic death poem
It is natural that coldness is easy for people to associate with death, because people are afraid of death and coldness has been always the symbol of bad situations. However, in Emily ’s poem concerning her longing for death, the appearance of coldness is also the indication of death’s coming.
In the famous poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death, “Emily regards death as a special glory. It represents happiness which will bring hope to people. The moment of death ’s coming is the arrival of happiness ” [8]. Emily wrote: “Because I could not stop for death—He kindly stopped for me—…For His Civility —” [6]. The use of words show that Emily accepts death in a pleasure way and she has an optimistic attitude toward death for she believes that death means immortality. However, near the end of the poem the image of coldness also appears
Or rather—He passed us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, My Gown—
My Tippet—only tulle—
We pause before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground.
Apparently, “quivering ”, “chill ”, “Gossamer ” and “Tulle ” are expressions of coldness. Before the appearance of those cold images, Emily lively describes the kindness of death, while after they appear, the carriage pauses before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground, which she actually refers to a tome —the embodiment of death. It reveals that when coldness appears, it intends to tell others death will come next. Also in the poem “As Imperceptibly as grief, the disappearance of summer is a symbol of death [6] P309. At the end of this poem, Emily says “Our summer made her light escape/ Into the Beauty”. “Beauty ” means “heaven ” [4] P310. Though this poem is not completely a death poem, the summer ’s diminishing is a symbol of death. Emily believes the existence of heaven which expresses her positive attitude toward death. Still the end of summer signifies the weather will become colder and colder, so here coldness is also the indication of death’s coming.
Of course, not in every Emily ’s optimistic death poems, death comes after the appearance of the image of coldness. There are many death poems that coldness never appears, however, she never use adjectives of warm kind to describe death. Following is the illustration: “the graves look like
“Sweet —safe —house —/ Glad—gay —house ” (216) [3]. In this poem, Emily use adjectives “sweet, safe, glad and gay” rather than warm to describe a tome which shows that Emily thinks death is happy but not warm. Also in this poem:
How good to be safe in tome
Where nature’s temper can not reach
Nor the vengeance ever comes. [3]
Wang Xinxin--the teacher of Inner Mongolia Normal University mentions that “in this poem Emily believes tome is a place of warmth and safety [3].
However, reading it carefully, one may find that this poem is describing the situation after death. “It is good to be safe in tome” means that the person has died ad has been buried. This poem deals with Emily ’s belief of immortality which is situation after death not before death while this paper deals with coldness as an indication of death which is the situation before death. So there is no argument of whether the image of coldness is the indication of death’s coming.
Conclusion
Emily ’s whole life was obsessed with love, nature and death. Death took an important position in Emily ’s belief. Among all Emily’s death poems, her attitudes toward death could be divided into two parts, one part was her negation of death, the other affirmation of death. In most of her death poems, the image of coldness was a device she often used to depict death. The appearance of cold image indicates the oncoming of death. Even in her affirmation and acceptance of death, the cold image is stilled followed by death ’s coming. Death is cold in Emily’s mind, though she sometimes believes that death is immortality. As a matter of fact, Emily’s ambivalent views of death are her manifestation of her being not want to die. If she really longs for death, there won’t be so many poems describing her horror and hatred to death. In her real life, Emily longs for love and appreciates nature, so in her bottom heart, it is not always cold. She is a combination of two sides: one side of her brims over with love, the other is full of uncertain toward death. Such is Emily—an observant and sensitive woman poet. In American literature history she is not a meteor just shooting though the sky but a star shining there forever.
Bibliography
[1] 陈莉莎. 上帝·死亡·永生. 湖南：湘潭大学社会科学学报，2002（4）..
[2] 郑海霞，耿卫玲. 艾米莉·狄金森诗中的冬天. 华北水利电学院学报，2008（1）.
[3] Wang, Xinxin. The Ambiguity of Death in Emily Dickinson ’s Poetry. Journal of Inner Mongolia
Normal University (5), 2006.
[4] Chang, Yaoxin. A Survey of American Literature. Tianjin: Nankai University Press, 2003.
[5] 侯斌，丁亚丽. 对死亡的矛盾心理. 宜宾学院学报，2008（3）.
[6] Li, Yi yi & Chang, Yaoxin. Selected Readings in American Literature. Tianjin: Nankai University
Press, 1991.
[7] AS, Hornby. Oxford Advanced Learner ’s English-Chinese Dictionary(6th Edition). Oxford
University Press.
[8] Sun, jia. 黑与白：艾米莉·狄金森诗中对待死亡的变化. 南方论刊，2007（5）.
[9] 谭锴. On Death Theme and Artistic Transmission of Emily Dickinson ’s Poetry. Post Graduate
Program College of Literature. Central China University. 2006.
[10] 徐高楠. 艾米莉·狄金森的死亡情结. 威海：考试周刊，2007.
[11] 刘其刚. 困惑的心灵—对比分析艾米莉·狄金森两首死亡诗. 济南：科技信息.2007(12).