Personal Response to Emily Dickinson Essay Example

The theme of this poem is Hope. Hence the title but anyways, Hope permeates throughout the whole poems structure. The pre dominant image of hope is that of:

“Hope is the thing with feathers-

That perches in the soul”

This image of the bird, valiantly perching in ones soul superbly captures the readers emotions and provokes many thoughts on life and how even in times of hardship, hope can always permeate your life! Vocabulary such as”never stops”, “sweetest” and “warm” all compliment the image of the bird percheing proudly in ones soul and this gives me great joy to think of. This image is in stark contrast to the difficult times which are presented through pathetic fallacy and through harsh geographical landscapes:

“I’ve heard it in the chilliest land- And on the strangest sea-”

Once more, I love Dickinsons sense of contrast and use of hard hitting vivid images to help portray her points.

“Write a personal response in relation to Dickinson’s exploration of theme”

The next poem I am going to look at is “I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died”. The theme of this masterpiece is quite unusual. The predominant theme is that of “the poets preoccupation with death”. One could argue that a second theme would be the hardships endured by people in life. The trademark standard random capitalisation and dashes capture the fading senses of the pot and emphasise the slow painful process of death.The repetition of:

“And then”

This highlights the process of deterioration involved in dying as slowly but surely each one of your senses slowly begins to evade you. The lovely use of assonance highlights the poets preoccupation with death. There is a lovely simile in the

opening stanza comparing the silence and tention in the room to the eye of a storm.

“Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm”

The images in the final stanza are particulary interesting. The fly represents the poets last look on earth and the “Windows” refer to the fading and deteorating sight of the poet.

The next poem I will look at is “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”. The predominant theme of this poem is Madness. The first half of the poem is rational even though she feels a funeral in her head:

“That sense was breaking through”

This shows a possible suggestion that she was on the edge of understanding of what is happening to her. The second half of the poem is surreal it has no proper senses. The appearances seem to be neat but when you look deeply her life seems to be incomplete with the hyphens peppered throughout her work. The repetition of “and” is a rush of words to try and get her meaning off as quick as possible. There is sensory deprivation throughout the play. She only feels and hears the funeral, does not see it. This could represent to a bad migrane. Only she knows its there, everyone else is oblivious. The pain is so great it has aneschetized her senses.

Imagery used is aural. Dickinson is suffering from a catastrophic breakdown, and this once again highlights her madness, the poems predominant theme. Dickinson uses enjanment to create a flowing effect throughout her poetry, which shows she is rushed and doesn’t follow rational poetic techniques, she always ends her poems with either a hyphen or a question mark and

this shows great confusion amongst her poems and once again highlights her frail state of mind. “I felt a funeral in my brain” is one of Dickinson’s longest poems at 5 stanzas, her usual poems consist of 4 stanzas, this once again shows the reader her madness and her deteorating state of mind. The rhyming scheme is ABCB, it is imperfect rhythm and this is a good beat.

The final poem I would like to look at is “ I taste a Liqour never Brewed”. The once again universal theme in this poem is Nature. Everyone can releate to it and this is the mitigating factor as to why Dickinson’s poems are still around today. Dickinson whimsically describes the exhilarating effect of nature. The title may perceive the reader into thinking that this poem has to do with alcohol but it misleads the reader. Dickinson is a hummingbird and is intoxicated on air, nature is her alcohol.

“Write a personal response in relation to Dickinson’s exploration of theme”

She does not drink as she was bought up in a devout religious family, her father preached Calvinism, which is very strict on drinking. So nature is her drug and she is just fanatic about outdoors. Dickinson establishes the drinking metaphor with the first line. Pearl, a precious gem, indicates the value of liquor made under the best of circumstances; her liquor (the beauty of nature) is even more precious. She uses the metaphor to show how nature elates her. She compares white flowers to tankards(drinking glasses), her flower is her drinking glass. The use of religious language is strictly for mockery purposes, she is not condemning the religion, using

such words as: “Inebriate”, “debauchee”, “renounce” and “seraphs”.

At times I have not liked Dickinson’s style but the one thing that you cant fault Dickinson for is her honesty, she completely lays herself bare in her poems which only a handful of poets do. Her themes are universal and this is the main reason as to why, 100 years on, we are still studying her beautiful masterpieces.