There is no doubt that Emily Dickinson was fixated on the idea of death while writing the majority of her poetry. If the poems are not centered on death, there is at least a mention of the subject. She wrote about it abstractly, directly, draped in metaphor and right out in the open. But why? Why did Emily Dickinson obsessively write about death? Was she fascinated by it? Terrified of it? Did she want to die so she explored the subject at such a great length to try and figure it out? Of course the answer, as Dickinson was herself, is unclear. However, even though death is a morbid subject for poetry, perhaps the most morbid some might say, Dickinson managed to insert an element of humor within her writing. Did she do this to comfort her readers? To comfort herself? Again, there is no answer. In the majority of Emily Dickinson’s poems that focus on death, she uses different techniques such as, surprising imagery, unconventional word choice, and incongruity to add this comedic element in her poetry. No matter her reason for implementing comedy in her poems about death, it allows her to make light of a darker subject.
One technique of
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It seems as though there is always a part of her poems that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the piece. Whether it is a line that is unlike the rest or an entire subject that juxtaposes the rest of the poem, it adds humor because clearly one of these things are not like the other. She makes use of this technique in poems like “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” and “It was not Death, for I stood up” but most obviously in “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died.” In this poem, Dickinson describes the speaker reflecting on the fact that when she died, she heard a fly in the room. Those around her have done their share of crying, and her belongings have been given away but even though “the King be witnessed – in the Room” (CITATION) she