Death as a Recurrent Theme in Emily Dickinson’s Select Poems

Abstract

This article attempts to analyse the theme of death in Emily Dickinson’s select poems. Death is Emily Dickinson's principal theme. It influences all her thinking and tinted the majority of her poetry. Dickinson considers death to be the ultimate criterion for life. She was continuously aware of its proximity and impending arrival. Her dying poetry's key characteristics highlight the very paradoxes, absurdities, and complexities of life. She does not present a final perspective on death in her poems dealing with death because death is a vast unknown mystery for her. A selection of Emily Dickinson's poems has been chosen to examine the concept of death. The article examines the various aspects of death like death's impartiality, immortality, and imagery. A detailed examination of the select poetry reveals that death is both natural and unprejudiced. Death can strike at any time and in any place in one's life. God determines one's death at the time of one's birth itself. The only person who can avoid death is God. So the poet says that man has to accept death as a natural phenomenon like birth.