Emily Dickinson Essay, Research Paper

Emily Dickinson

The year 1830 is a crucial date in English history. You see, this is

the year that one of the most influential poets in the world was born. Emily

Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, an old fashioned Puritan town.

Rarely did she go outside to meet strangers or walk in the garden. Emily felt

uncomfortable outside of her house and even if she did travel, it wasn’t for

more than one hour. She was greatly impacted by her father, who was a lawyer,

politician, and treasurer of Amherst College. The turning point in Emily’s life

occurred while she was on a business trip in Washington D.C. with her father.

There, Emily met a Presbyterian Minister. Soon enough, she deeply fell in love

with this man , whose name was Charlies Wadsworth. Even though the two were

acquaintances, Emily felt a bond between herself and the much older and already

married minister. However, although Charles was kind to her, he did not return

her love. Eight years later, in1862, Charlies left for San Francisco,

Calafornia with his family. It was about this time that Emily totally secluded

herself from the world and started what would be world famous poems throughout

the future . She adopted her ideas on poetry from her personal life, her

fondness of nature, death, and her dislike of organized religion. War is

occasionally pulled into Emily’s poems also.

Emily seemed truly concerned over happenings in her personal life. So

she mainly focused her writings on the loss of her lover. In “I Never Saw A

Moor,” she describes things that she had never seen or experienced before but

she knows what they are about. Here, Emily is trying to express herself on why

she thinks Charles left her. She is desperately searching for answers. Emily

attempted to teach others a lesson when she wrote “Tell All The Turth, But Tell

It Slant.” In this work, she wishes that Charles had given her a reason why he

left so abruptly. She is stressing that people should tell all the truth, but

lay it down easily so it does not cause strife. “Heart! We Will Forget Him!”

Explains her feelings that she still has for Charles. However, she strived to

put memories of Charles behind her and to move on in life. Emily hoped to see

her lost love in eternity sometime.

On the other hand, her love for Charles was not the only thing that she

wrote about. “The Spider Holds A Silver Ball” explains why we should admire a

spider’s web. A spider took an excessive amount of time to build the silver

ball, or pearl, that we call a web. The spider cherishes its web, so we should

respect that. In the poem “There’s A Certain Slant Of Light,” we must realize

that when hard times attack us, we need to fight back by ourselves. We can not

always depend on nature for help. Emily wrote “The Sky Is Low” to contrast the

similarities of life and nature. She speaks of nature being an uncontrollable

and unpredictable force just like people inhibit these same traits.

Death was certainly not a disclosed subject to Emily. “I Shall Keep

Singing” inspires us all to consider death as a brand new beginning. It says

look forward to death because it will relieve you of all your worries and

frustrations. “The GraveMy Little Cottage Is” also encourages us to battle

through struggles and eventually death will bring us relaxation. In “The Dying

Need But Little Dear,” Emily once again stresses on having a laid back attitude

toward death. She absolutely put faith in ger beliefs about death and where she

was spending eternity. This is probably why Emily was not terrified of death

the least bit.

Despite Emily’s ignorance of death itself, she still had to face it. In

1884, her health gave way at the age of fifty four and she became ill. Two

years later, Emily Dickinson died. All of her poems were found by Tom Higginson,

a close friend of hers, and by her neighbor. They were all neatly organized in

blue folders in her house. Little did she know that her poems would sit the

pace for years to come. Her poems would be examined by students, professors,

and those who had common characteristics to her. To end on a thoughtful note,

remember to follow Emily’s words wisely and “Tell all the truth, but tell it

slant.”