Emily Dickinson

Dickinson is just as fascinated by death as Sylvia Plath, but her perception of it seems completely different. Her style is different too; it's ethereal and airy (its tone, not its content!) instead of biting and intimate like Plath's.
It seems like she's more interested in the relationship between life and death than death itself. What kind of connection, if any, exists between our bodies, possessions, life experiences, and our soul?


The poem that begins with "Death sets a thing significant..." explores the relationship between the material and the "spiritual" (I can't think of another word for it...unfortunately). She describes objects that would have little or no value if they hadn't once been animated by some kind of life force - crayon marks, a thimble, a book, etc. She says "Death sets a thing significant", but really death provides a contrast to life, which is what makes things significant; those objects were put to use and given meaning when the speaker's friend(s) were alive. Death simply reminds her of their significance, if that makes sense.


What happens to a person's possessions, like the thimble or the book, and to their bodies when their soul departs? Are those things meaningful at all, or are they just insignificant because they're temporary? The same idea shows up in "I heard a fly buzz when I died":

"I willed my keepsakes, signed away

What portion of me I

Could make assignable..."

Again, there is a distinction here between things that can be made "assignable" and whatever it is that makes up a soul. What "portion"of a person is earthly and temporary, and what's left over? What defines this supposedly unique, timeless, unearthly "soul"?


I like these poems because of their deceptively simple, detached tone; it's mysterious and intriguing, which reflects the quality of the content, and makes me think about death in different ways without beating me over the head with an opinion or moral judgment.